Over the Candlestick
by Cimz
Summary: After 8 years in captivity, Todd returns to Llanview to find a mother who wants him dead and a son who wants to frame him for murder. Blair's quest to save Jack's soul is complicated by the need to save Todd's life. And Starr? She just wants her family back. Todd/Blair and Manning Family fic, picking up in September 2011. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

_Surreal_.

It was on the list of SAT words posted in the hallway. Jack had been staring at it vacantly before his mother had had the good sense to pick him up from school almost before the day had begun.

Jack didn't need an SAT prep book to define surreal.

Surreal was the feeling he got as soon as he stepped into the country club stables with Blair. He was almost dizzy with the sensation of having stepped back in time, or perhaps into another dimension where everything hadn't gone to hell. The smell of hay and horses was the same. The sound of hooves shuffling through straw was the same. The soft, dusty light was the same.

"Want me to saddle Casey for you?" the groom asked.

"No, I'll saddle him myself," Jack answered automatically, then wondered why he had. Getting someone else to do things for him was one of Jack's favorite pastimes. But here in the stable, he reverted to the young boy who had heeded his mother's lessons. Blair had drummed that into his mind longer ago than he could remember: _You get ready yourself. You make sure everything is safe. You remind the horse that you're a team. If you don't know the horse, you start getting the measure of him before you're on his back._

Jack didn't know Casey. He didn't know any of the horses here; it had been years since he and Blair had gone riding together. It had been before Cole got Starr pregnant and the whole Manning family had splintered around the drama of it all.

Jack scowled.

Casey obediently lifted each foot in turn so Jack could inspect them. The groom had cleaned them carefully and there was nothing Jack could do to improve upon the job. Casey's black coat, too, was smooth and spotless. There wasn't much to do but lift the saddle onto the horse's broad back and fasten the girth around his middle.

Casey held his breath in the hopes that Jack was some novice who didn't know this trick. Jack laughed and gave the horse a friendly pat. "You can't fool me with that one," Jack said as Casey gave up and let him tighten the girth. "I'm the one who fools other people."

He fooled people like his mother. Blair had once known him inside out, but she had believed him when he told her that he'd seen Scarface shoot his father—Victor. He wasn't sure whether he was disappointed in her or proud of himself. Probably it was both. He was almost grown up now; of course it was hard to realize that his mother didn't know everything. That was why he kept having stupid fantasies about telling her the truth. In his heart of hearts, he didn't want to give up the idea that if something went wrong, she would fix it.

"I can't trust her," he reminded himself. Victor-dad had told him that a thousand times, and Victor was the one who really had fixed the unfixable when Gigi Morasco…

Jack swallowed hard and mounted the horse from the ground, even though he knew the rule was that riders had to use the mounting block. He was lying to the police about two different murders; he was hardly going to be phased by some stupid rule posted on a barn door.

Blair was waiting for him astride a fidgeting white horse. Jack rolled his eyes at the universe's heavy-handed symbolism. He, the unpunished killer, rode the dark horse; his mother, naïve enough to believe his lies, rode the light.

"Where do you want to go?" Blair asked.

Jack shrugged. "Someplace empty. Where we can run and jump."

"The groom told me no one else is out today—the kids are all back in school. We should be fine on the main trail through the woods."

"Whatever."

The white horse was moving sideways on its toes, even more eager to get going than Jack. "It's all right, Boreas," Blair said in the soothing tone she usually saved for Hope or Sam. She had used it on Jack, too, eons ago. "We're going." She kicked Boreas lightly with her heels, and Jack followed suit with Casey.

"I miss doing this with you all the time," Blair said casually as they reached the mouth of the trail.

Jack grunted. He couldn't bring himself to say he missed it, too, because that would be almost the same as saying he hadn't seen Scarface at Tea's house and that he was just as responsible as Brad for the death of Shane's mother. And he couldn't say those things; that would be the ultimate betrayal of Victor-dad.

"Do you know why I started bringing you here with me?" Blair prompted.

"Because no one else would come with you and I was a kid so you could make me?"

Blair laughed, not remotely insulted. "There was no one I would rather have been with than you, not if the whole world was banging down my door." Then she turned serious. "But that wasn't why I brought you. It was when your dad—Victor—was on death row. It was such a stressful time, and I wanted to make sure you never fell through the cracks. I wanted to make sure we always spent time together, one on one. I wanted to be sure that we had something special that was just ours." She slapped her leg in frustration; Boreas' ears flipped back in suspicion. "I get angry just thinking about it. So much time you kids should have had with Victor, and he was executed for a crime he didn't commit." Her eyes bore holes into Jack's. "That was one of the reasons I had to believe you when you said you heard Todd shoot Victor. You know what that kind of false accusation does to someone, and to the people he loves. You couldn't send Todd off to his death like that, not unless you were sure."

They turned onto a flat, broad stretch of path. Jack kicked Casey into a run. If he'd had to listen to one more minute of Blair's reminiscing, he would have thrown up or burst into tears. Possibly both.

Casey was a singularly calm, obedient horse, but Jack still had to use all of his concentration to maintain his balance at a gallop and slow the pace as they approached a log lying across the trail. Without waiting for Jack's signal, Casey gathered himself for the jump. For a fraction of a second as they flew through the air, Jack couldn't tell where he ended and Casey began.

Jack laughed as they landed smoothly. "Good one, Casey," he told the horse. "It's nice to have someone on your side, isn't it? _Really_ on your side, not…"

He trailed off as he watched Blair and Boreas jump, rush past them, and then circle back.

"You looked great," Blair told Jack. Her face was flushed with pleasure. "You haven't forgotten anything."

"Thanks," said Jack. He beamed in spite of himself. No one ever complimented him, except maybe some of the dumber kids at school who thought he'd beat them up if they didn't suck up to him.

A flock of birds, startled by something perceptible only to them, rose in the air alongside the trail. Casey didn't so much as turn his head to look at them. Boreas snorted and reared up on his hind legs.

"What'd you do? Ask for the most difficult horse?" Jack asked when Blair had Boreas under control again.

"I like Boreas," Blair said casually. "He reminds me of Araby."

"Araby?"

Blair's eyes grew wistful. "You don't remember him? Your fath—well, Todd. He gave me Araby for my first birthday after he came into his money. I'd told him once how I used to dream about having a fast, powerful horse that could fly me away from everything that hurt me. Araby wasn't completely broken when Todd bought him. He was wild and fearless and beautiful, and Todd said that that reminded him of me. It was the most wonderful compliment anyone had ever—" She choked on her next words. "I was such a fool to believe a man who would hit my child over the head and murder the only father he ever knew. Don't worry," she rushed on. "I know that you would never lie to me, that you know you can tell me anything."

A sick, hot spasm of guilt shot through Jack. He knew that he needed to get justice for Victor, but he couldn't keep listening to this. If his mother had spent her every waking moment since he'd told her Scarface had killed Victor-dad trying to decide how to get him to change his story, she couldn't have done better.

He set Casey to trotting back toward the barn. He'd tell his mother he'd changed his mind about playing hooky and wanted to go back to school for the afternoon. But before Jack was able to attempt to convince Blair of this unlikely change of heart, their phones buzzed in unison with the message that the reading of the will of Victor Lord, Junior, was to take place that afternoon.

* * *

Todd watched, mesmerized, as Starr ran her hand along the bars of his holding cell. Everything about Starr fascinated him; it always had. He wouldn't have been surprised if the bars had vanished beneath Starr's touch. It wouldn't have been the most miraculous thing Starr had ever done.

"I really don't like this plan Mom has," Starr sighed. "Pretending to believe Jack about seeing you at Victor's that night. That's not going to make him confess. It's just going to convince him that lying works." Her eyes flashed the same way Blair's did right before she went on a tear. "I'm going to tell Jack that Mom's faking."

"No, you aren't."

Starr gripped the bars with both hands and clenched her jaw. "So you're just going to stay in here forever?"

"Your mother telling Jack that she doesn't believe him won't make him change his story. I'd still be in here."

"But on principle—"

Todd laughed. "I've been gone a long time, but surely you remember that I have very few principles."

"But—"

"Nothing is more important than Jack's soul. Nothing. I would stay in here forever if that was what it took to keep Jack from following in Victor Lord's footsteps. Original recipe Victor Lord, I mean. Maybe this other one, too." Todd grimaced.

"How is it going to do Jack's soul any good to know he locked up an innocent man, who's been _tortured for eight years_?" Starr's voice echoed indignantly off metal and concrete.

Todd turned his head quickly to hide the tears that sprang to his eyes. Most of the time, he was angry that no one seemed to care that he had been held against his will and tortured; most of the time, he could control that anger. He hadn't had as much practice with feeling loved or missed.

Starr was still raving, and still sounding like her mother. "… letting him say awful things about me, letting him hate me, that's one thing, but letting him take you away from me right when I got you back—that's too much. I know Jack got the short end of the stick in a lot of ways for the past eight years, but the rest of us get to matter, too. You can't stay in here. Hope and I can't keep living without you. Mom can't, either, even if she thinks she can."

"She doesn't think she can," Todd said, and saying the words put him back on what passed for an even keel. He knew it was true. He'd known it when Blair kissed him. He'd known it when she asked where he'd been. He'd known it when she'd stood silently watching him tell Hope about Beauty and the Beast and getting into cars with strangers.

Starr raised her eyebrows with interest. "Why do you say that?" she drew out playfully The same old impish smile danced across her lips. Nothing distracted Starr like thought of playing matchmaker for her parents.

"Never mind. Why do you say Jack got the short end of the stick?"

"He didn't have you," Starr said simply. "He never had you. I had memories of you, I had things you taught me and even when Victor didn't care about us any more, I still had them. Jack didn't. And when I got pregnant with Hope, I know it seemed to him like that was what broke Mom and Victor up for good, like Mom chose me over him. Which is ridiculous, if Victor was willing to do that to Hope and me, who knows what he was willing to do to Jack or Sam if one of them made a mistake."

"Who knows what he _did_ do to Jack when he made a mistake," Todd muttered. "I wish whoever killed him had gotten there a few months earlier. A few years earlier. And made him suffer more."

A mocking laugh interrupted them. "Not the thing to say when you're in jail for murdering a man, Manning." A cop bearing a tray of food gestured for Starr and Todd to step back from the bars. They obeyed, but tempered their obedience with matching disgusted stares.

Todd pushed the food away without looking at it. He'd eaten out of garbage cans in his life and probably would again, but at the moment prison food had no appeal for him.

Todd Manning, with no appetite. Even the Sun wouldn't print something so ridiculous.  
"You should eat, Dad," Starr prompted. "After all that time with Irene, your body needs to get used to regular food at regular times. You're probably fighting off all kinds of colds since you haven't been exposed to germs for years, plus the stress of the emotional upheaval—"

"Are you pre-med?" Todd asked. He liked the idea. Better Starr than Dorian for the family doctor.

Starr preened. "I'm going to be a singer."

"A singing doctor?" Todd prompted.

"You know I've always wanted to be a singer."

Todd didn't know any such thing. He'd gone over every memory of Starr in his head ten thousand times. She _liked_ to sing; she sang solo in her school concerts and of course she sang with her mother. But her passions had always run to reptiles, science, and raising hell.

Rather than challenge Starr—but promising himself to ask Blair about this—he opened his lunch. The first thing that caught his eye was a note. Starr pressed her face against the bars to read along with him:

_Bring it to me by tomorrow night or I will kill them one by one. Blair, Starr, Jack, Danielle, and even little Sam and Hope._

Before Todd could draw breath to holler for the guard, the writing vanished. The note was just a napkin.

He was terrified to look at Starr. Had she seen anything? Had he hallucinated the note? Had he forgotten her singing aspirations? A few months before, he'd struggled to remember his own name.

"What're we going to do?" asked Starr frantically.

"You saw that? You saw the writing disappear?"

"Of course." Starr shrugged. "Pretty low tech for Irene, isn't it? Sodium hydroxide and thymolphthalein exposed to carbon dioxide."

"What?"

"Disappearing ink. Dad, what is _it_?"

"This would be a lot easier if I knew, wouldn't it?"

* * *

As odd as it sounded, Jack had expected the reading of Victor-dad's will to be less stressful than his morning ride with his mother.

That was before Irene swept in and declared herself the owner of all of Victor-dad's assets. She didn't care that Starr hadn't shown up; she announced that she was ejecting Tea and Dani from their house; she glowered at Viki, Tina, and Blair with undisguised loathing.

She was scary as hell.

The scariest thing about her was that she seemed to like Jack.

"You have so much of my Victor in you," she purred as she offered Jack a small box.

Jack's stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch. She was right and he knew it. He and Victor-dad both got people killed. They both lied to the police and made them look like fools. They both lied to Blair and made her miserable.

Unbidden, his eyes strayed to his mother, who had already put herself halfway between Jack and Irene.

"Stay away from my son," Blair growled.

Warmth flooded through Jack. He hadn't felt loved and protected for he couldn't remember how long. Victor-dad was the only one who could have saved him from the Gigi mess, and even Victor-dad had made no secret of preferring Dani to any of Blair's children.

"He's the Lord Heir before he's your son, and since I am in control of a good deal of the Lord fortune, I will do what I like with him."

Somehow, Jack had gotten to this point in his life without realizing just how good his mother's right hook was. He was beyond impressed. Part of him wanted to interrupt the fight to tell Blair that he hadn't seen Scarface outside the day Victor-dad was murdered. Maybe he'd even tell her about Gigi. She loved him. She would help him. Victor-dad might have been wrong when he'd told Jack that he couldn't trust Blair.

Irene was staggering backwards and clutching her face.

"You'll regret that," Irene told Blair.

"Stay away from Jack, or you'll be the one with regrets."

Irene straightened up, one hand still pressed to her cheek. "Jack is old enough to decide who he does and does not see. You make your own decisions, don't you, Jack?"

"Yeah," said Jack automatically, because there was only one answer you could give to that question. There was especially only one answer Jack was going to give when Dani, who was always trying to boss him around, was in the room.

"Your mother didn't like it when you showed loyalty to Victor and made certain his killer was put behind bars, did she? But you protected the man who always protected you, now that he has no one but us left."

"I supported my son in making that statement," said Blair fiercely. "If Todd is guilty, Todd has to pay. You are guilty, and you will pay."

"And if someday you decide that Jack is guilty, you'll make him pay. Throw him to the wolves?" She switched her attention, quickly, to Jack. "You see how quickly she and your sister Starr and your Aunt Viki abandoned your father when they decided they had a better offer."

Jack had. He'd seen it the night of the _Vickerman_ premiere. As soon as Scarface showed up, Blair and Starr had reacted like they'd just been given everything they'd never known to wish for. Apparently what they wished for was their years with Scarface, before Jack. Jack's life, and Jack's father, were to be blinked away.

Blair and Viki protested that they had never abandoned Victor. Jack knew better.

He couldn't believe how close he had come to ignoring Victor-dad's advice and telling Blair everything. He inched closer to the box Irene had tried to give him, which lay abandoned under a chair. A moment before, he had been terrified to know what might be in it. Now, he was curious.

He snapped the box open. Inside lay a ring. The room fell silent; everyone was watching Jack.

"Victor Lord's ring," Irene explained. "It belongs with the Lord heir, don't you think?"

Jack nodded. He slipped the ring onto his finger. It didn't quite fit—it was loose—but it reminded him of Victor-dad.

"You'd like to help me preserve your father's legacy, wouldn't you? Work at the Sun? Stay in your room here tonight?"

"I thought you said we had to move out."

"I said they had to move out." She gestured at Tea and Dani. "I'd be thrilled if you'd stay."

She was terrifying, undoubtedly a sociopath. But Jack couldn't very well let himself get lulled into a sense of security. He had to stick with Victor-dad's plan. He couldn't betray him after his murder, which had taken place in this very room.

"I'll stay," he told Irene.


	2. Chapter 2

Blair didn't have a chance to think about how much her words would tempt Irene before they fell out of her mouth.

"Over my dead body will you stay here tonight!" she snapped at Jack. "You are still underage, and I still say where you will live."

Jack shook his head, all sullen teenage boy who knew better than everyone else, especially his mother. Irene was right, Blair knew; there was a lot of Victor in Jack. Victor had steadfastly transferred his own disdain for Blair to her son. The sensitive, intuitive (if smart-mouthed) Jack who would stick up for her against anyone was gone.

"You can't make me," said Jack, planting his feet firmly. A chill ran through Blair. Jack was standing in the exact same place Victor had been when she'd last seen him alive, as if she needed another reminder that her son was on dangerous ground.

She looked hard at Jack. "I will call Shaun and have him throw you over his shoulder and carry you back to La Boulaie if I have to." She held up her phone. "And I'll videotape it, too." She stopped short of threatening to upload the video onto MyFace to see if Jack liked that as much as poor Shane Morasco had. There were too many battles to fight to bring that one up.

"Fine," spat Jack, in a way Blair interpreted as _fine, I'll just come back later, the same as I did the night Victor died and I almost died with him._

"Good," said Blair sweetly. She wrapped her arm around Jack and held on so he couldn't shrug it off. "Tea, do you and Dani want to come stay with us?"

Tea was firmly in lawyer-mode. "We're not going anywhere, because we're going to get an injunction," she announced.

Blair was secretly relieved. That meant two fewer distractions while she tried to keep Jack from destroying his life, not to mention Todd's. She wrestled Jack out the door.

* * *

Starr paced nervously across the space in front of her father's cell and took a drink of water to soothe her suddenly dry throat.

"If we don't know what _it_ is, how can we stop her from trying to kill us? Do you think she even knows what _it_ is? The note was from Irene, right?"

"Of course it was from Irene." Todd's eyes locked with Starr's; she remembered this conspiratorial look well. "Shorty, you need to break me out of here."

"I can't do that!" Starr objected.

"Why not?" Todd asked, sounding for all the world like this was a normal request all fathers made of their daughters. "I heard you broke the other guy out when you were, like, eleven."

"That was a moving van!" Starr protested. She wondered where Todd had learned about that. He probably had read that stupid semi-authorized biography after all. In a way, that was better than telling him herself everything that she had been through with Victor without realizing that he was an imposter. "All I had to do was get it to stop."

"Now all you have to do is get this door open." Todd gave the lock a rattle.

"The only way they're going to open that door is if they're going to take you to be arraigned, which they're not, or to give you food, which they already did, or if they think you're dying…" A long-forgotten thrill rushed through Starr. She knew that she had to stay mature and safe for Hope. Childhood games had ended the moment she decided to raise her own child. But Irene had specifically threatened Hope, and there was no chance of stopping Irene while Todd was behind bars. "Lean forward!" Starr instructed.

Todd obeyed, but protested as Starr rubbed her water into his hair and shirt. "What's the idea?" Todd demanded.

"You have to look like you're sweating," Starr hissed. "You're going to fake a heart attack."

"Heart attacks are for old guys. People like Clint Buchanan."

Starr ignored him and carefully patted water onto his face. Guilt threatened to temper her adrenaline rush. How could she ever have thought that any other man could be her father? How had it been so obvious to Irene's organization that she could be so easily tricked?

Todd brushed Starr's hands away and reached through the bars to cup her cheek in his hand instead. "Thank you, Shorty," he said quietly.

"Don't make a habit of this," she tried to joke.

"You ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be. Go lie down on the floor. When the guard comes in to check on you, you'll have to jump up and overpower him."

"And you have to stay back. I'll tell everyone I tricked you, too."

Starr nodded. That made the most sense, even though part of her wanted to protest that she was going to tell the world that her father was innocent and she was standing by him, even to the point of breaking him out of jail.

As Todd took his place on the floor, Starr opened her mouth to scream.

She'd done a lot of acting in her life. There had been leads in more than one school musical. Even before that, there had been schemes: _Really, Mom, I just want you to drop the charges against Dad so the kids at school won't make fun of me. Really, Dad, a man came into the yard and tried to kidnap me._

For the most part, it had come naturally. But nothing came as naturally as the scream that ripped out of her throat. She was scared for her daughter. She was scared for the rest of her family. She was frustrated by Jack's stupid lies. She was furious at the people who had locked her father up and used her stupidity to help keep him there.

She should have started screaming before today. It felt good.

When the guard came running, she hysterically described her conviction that her father was having a heart attack. Part of her believed that Todd really had fallen ill—who knew what Irene had done to his body that might come back and haunt him?

The guard was unmoved. "He's faking. He's done that to get himself out of prison before. He was fine an hour ago, you know that."

Starr cried harder. "Things happen all of a sudden. Every minute counts, he's lying there dying, and you don't even care! You're trying to take him away from me just when I got him back! He doesn't even belong in there! My brother Jack is a liar, everyone knows that! Lock me up instead, that'll make Jack just as happy, you should see how much he hates me!"

The commotion drew another guard, and Starr winced inwardly. Two guards would make this harder; perhaps she'd overdone it with the choking sobs. It was like there were two of her: one that was genuinely hysterical, and another that was cool and calculating. She wondered if this was something like what Aunt Viki felt when her alters came out.

One guard unlocked the door and went to Todd's side; the other covered him from beside Starr. She could feel the plan slipping away. The only thing worse would have been the second guard drawing his gun.

That, she could stop.

She lunged for the guard and grabbed the gun herself.

Her ears were ringing, but somehow she heard her father's disbelieving "Starr?" over the guards' stream of profanity.

"Hands behind your back!" she ordered. "Dad, get the other gun. Both of you, side by side against the bars."

They did as she said. If only life could be like this all the time. _Jack, tell the truth and stop being a bullying douche. James, stop whining about how Hope doesn't like you. Baz, knock it off with trying to get sleazy Rick the porn guy to represent us. Dani, if I hear one more screech about how Victor was perfect but how dare I not tell you he was an imposter, it'll be the last thing you say for a long time. And Cole, knock it off with the puppy dog eyes—you made your own damn bed, and mine, too._

"Cuff them to the bars. Gag them," Starr directed Todd.

Oh, she could get used to being the brains of the operation.

She locked the cell behind the guards and tossed the guns into another locked cell.

"We could use those!" Todd objected.

"You wouldn't be here if you hadn't stolen Aunt Dorian's gun. You don't need any more guns."

"How do you expect me to get rid of Irene?"

She handed Todd the keys to her car. "You drive. I'll think."

She scanned through her voicemails and texts as Todd pulled smoothly out of the parking lot, no rush, not a care in the world.

"They read Victor's will and it gave everything to Irene," she reported. "How does that even make sense? Irene showed up and kicked Tea and Dani out of their own house."

"Is she still there?"

"I guess. Mom and Jack went home, and Irene called the cops on Tea and Dani because they wouldn't go. I think Tea was trying to make some kind of legal point? Anyway, don't go there. The cops are probably still there. They'll send you right back to jail, only this time I'll be in the cell across from you."

"You shouldn't have grabbed that gun," Todd scolded. "No way I can say you weren't an accomplice now."

"You're welcome," said Starr sarcastically.

"We have to get rid of the car." He pulled into the perpetually crowded lot of a shopping center. "You had to have vanity plates that say 'twinkle' with a pink border?"

Starr shrugged. "I wasn't planning on it being a getaway car."

They abandoned the car and cut through the woods toward La Bolaie by mutual agreement. Starr desperately needed to see that her family, especially Hope, was all right. She could tell that Todd felt the same.

"It's the perfect place to go, anyway," Todd added. "Jack's the one who put me in jail and your mother's been backing him up, publicly. It's like when you were little and your mom hid out from the mob at the penthouse because everyone knew she hated me."

"When you pretended my baby-sitter was dead," said Starr coolly. "That was a rotten thing to do."

"Yeah. Sorry."

They slipped inside as quietly as they could and went to Starr's room to regroup. She was struck hard with the memory of the time she'd hidden Cole here to help him detox. She'd been 17 years old, mourning her dead baby, and Victor had gotten a court order to force her to leave La Boulaie and move in with him. He hadn't wanted to give her time to so much as pack a change of underwear.

How could she have thought he was her father?

As Todd sat in her desk chair and turned on her computer, she wished that she could freeze the moment and extend it back over the past eight years.

* * *

Blair closed her eyes as Sam gave her a goodnight hug. Jack's constant stream of lies and vitriol made her appreciate her younger son that much more.

But Blair couldn't afford to give herself over to Sam completely any more than she could afford to think about her own grief for Jack or Todd or Victor. If she fell apart, there was no one to pick up the pieces. Not fragile Addie, who had lived most of her life in an institution. Not Dorian, who was off in Washington and eager to send the first Todd the way of the second. Not Tea, crazed with loss and the knowledge that she hadn't finally taken Todd from Blair after all. Not Starr, still a child and once again under her father's spell. And certainly not Todd, back behind bars and with more reason to hate Blair than Victor had ever had.

Blair left Sam's bedroom door wide open so Jack would have no chance of sneaking past her and returning to Tea's house.

Or perhaps it really was Irene's house, now.

To Blair, it would always be the house where Victor had made his ridiculous love nest with Marty, where he had planned to steal Hope away and leave his own supposed children forever.

In retrospect, they would have been better off.

She pulled an ornate volume of fairy tales from Sam's shelf. "Should we read some of these tonight?" she asked.

"No! Spiderman!" Sam pointed at a dog-eared book that was lying on the floor.

"Of course, Spiderman," she agreed.

She had read the story to Sam many times before, so it was not hard to read and watch Jack's door at the same time. The door cracked open twice, then closed again.

Blair kept reading after Sam fell asleep; she kept reading after she heard the telltale sounds of Starr returning home. She stopped only when her phone buzzed with a text from Christian:

_Out of Llantano Pumpkin Stout. Delivery did not come this morning. Here now, but they won't take my signature, they want yours. Want to come or should I tell them to get lost?_

She quickly tapped out a message to let the idiot go. Mind games with Jack in the morning and an emotionally charged will reading in the afternoon were enough. She didn't need to deal with an incompetent deliveryman in the evening, too. Everyone knew that Christian managed Capricorn and was perfectly capable of signing a delivery slip. If this jerk didn't want to get paid, her customers would drink something else—although the local pumpkin stout was particularly trendy this autumn. This problem, unlike her other problems, could be solved. And venting with Christian would do her some good.

She changed her mind.

_Give me 20 minutes._

She could get someone else to play jailer for an hour while she got things squared away at Capricorn.

Quickly, she discarded the casual clothes she had been wearing and stepped into a slim blue dress. As she reached behind herself to close the long zipper, her back twinged in protest. It had already been the latest long, stressful day in a series of long, stressful days.

"What's the point of having a grown up daughter if it isn't this?" she asked aloud. She quickly brushed into Starr's room. "Starr, can you zip…"

Then she forgot what she was going to stay. With the dress hanging off of her, she stared at Todd as he jumped awkwardly to his feet.

"Starr," Blair managed when she had regained her breath and closed the door, "Haven't I told you to stop breaking people out of prison?"


	3. Chapter 3

"No," said Starr. "I'm pretty sure you never told me I wasn't allowed to break people out of prison."

"My mistake," said Blair wryly. "We should have discussed it." As if to punctuate her concession, the blue dress came dangerously close to slipping off her shoulder. In response, Starr moved as if to close the dress. Her hand hovered over the zipper for a fraction of a second. Then she grinned devilishly in her father's direction and backed away.

Blair twisted to zip the dress herself. At least, that was what she meant to do. Instead, she stayed frozen and watched Todd walk across the room, all sleekness and unused power.

One large hand grazed her hip and the other went to the back of her neck. The tension she'd been carrying in her neck for months multiplied a thousandfold. The zipper, usually cold against her spine, was suddenly hot enough to burn as the dress tightened around her and made breathing almost impossible.

She had never realized before that this dress was a death trap.

"There," said Todd, and the feeling of his breath in her hair jolted her back to reality. She turned and shoved Todd hard with both hands.

"You didn't want me to close the little hook at the top?" asked Todd.

"I didn't want you to turn our daughter into a felon!" she snarled. Rage wiped away her tiredness and confusion. "I'm working on Jack, I had him this close to telling the truth twice today. There's no real evidence to hold you anyway. You couldn't be patient, I'm used to that with you. But dragging Starr into it, making sure she gets a criminal record, maybe she can end up in prison and Hope can have no parents—"

Starr tugged at Blair's arm. "Mom, he didn't drag me into it. I helped because I wanted to, because Irene is going to come after us—you, and Hope, and Sam. We don't have time to wait for Jack to decide to tell the truth."

"Irene is busy evicting Tea and Dani. She has all of your father's money, so I doubt she's worried about any of us."

"No!" Starr shook her head emphatically. "She sent a note to Dad in jail. I saw it. It said she was going to kill all of us if she didn't get what she wanted." Starr wrapped her arms around Blair and Blair could feel the desperation in her grip. "I was afraid she'd already hurt you until we came in and heard you reading to Sam."

Blair kissed Starr's head. "And you didn't think of showing this note to the police? To Bo? To John?"

Starr bit her lip. "The note was written in disappearing ink."

"That's convenient," said Blair, but somehow she didn't doubt Starr at all.

"She managed to lock me up for eight years," added Todd. "A little sodium hydroxide and thymine isn't hard for her."

"Thymolphthalein," Starr corrected. "Mom, I saw it. We both saw it. I could tell from your voicemail that you're worried about what Irene might do, too."

Blair wasn't inclined to admit that Starr was correct. She was too angry that Starr wasn't going to make it out of her teens with no criminal record after all—and they'd come so unexpectedly close. "Didn't you want to check on Hope?" she asked.

Starr's expression made it plain that she saw the abrupt change of subject for what it was, but she headed for the door without complaint. "I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't thought it was life and death," she said quietly. She gave Blair's shoulder a caress as she left.

Blair glared at Todd anyway.

"She'll get community service at most," Todd said preemptively.

"You went to law school while you were hanging out with your crazy mother?"

The change in Todd was instantaneous. His body tightened; his face hardened; his eyes flashed. With a mixture of fear, guilt, surprise, and horror, Blair willed herself not to back away from him. As furious as he clearly was, she didn't believe that he would hurt her, but she knew from long experience that when he came back to his senses he couldn't handle thinking that she'd felt threatened.

"I wasn't 'hanging out' with her," he growled in a low tone she'd barely heard him use since before Starr's birth. "She had me kidnapped and beaten and strapped to a chair. No one touched me except to torture me. It was mostly electrical shocks until I passed out. I was catatonic for a while. She sent someone to take over my life, and somehow he's the victim and I was at a spa?"

"No. I shouldn't have said that."

"It's what you believe. I would never stop you from saying what you believe." The growl was already fading.

"I know that what happened to you was horrible. You didn't deserve any of that."

"You think that in your head." Blair stood perfectly still as Todd curled a strand of her hair around his fingers. "But in your heart," one hand traced a spot below her clavicle near the neckline of her dress, "you figure I deserved it."

"No! No one deserves that, especially not you. Todd—"

He waved her off. The fury was gone now, completely replaced by weariness. "If someone had done that to you, I would have gone scorched earth. I would have gone to the end of the world for you. Not only did you not even notice I was gone, you didn't care. No one but Starr cared, and you would rather she hadn't busted me out of that cell to save you—but Jack kills some woman and you're fine with that because he hates me, right?"

Too many thoughts crowded Blair's head for her to pick one to express first. _I looked for you. I didn't believe he was you. He didn't like me by the end. He didn't care if I lived or died. He didn't care about our children. If he can feel that way, so can you, because he came from you. I can't go through that again. I can't think about what happened to you because I can't stand it. I'd get under the covers and cry and never come out. Jack hates everyone, including me. Victor made sure of that. It's killing me. I'm fighting for Jack's soul. I need Starr, and you're about to take her away again. I'm jealous of Starr because she has you. I'm jealous of you because you have Starr. Oh, and your touch makes me want to rip off your clothes right here in our daughter's bedroom._

With unusual patience, Todd stared at Blair expectantly.

Then Starr burst into the room. "Cops are coming, cops are coming." She grabbed Todd by the hand. "Pool house first, and go from there if they search it." She waved her pink phone at Blair. "Text us."

Not a minute later, the doorbell was ringing and Bo Buchanan was apologizing for the late hour.

Blair bit back her comment about how odd it was that the chief of police came in person. Meek compliance was the way to go: she hadn't seen Starr all day, she hadn't known Todd had escaped, no one was here but Jack and Sam and Hope and couldn't the officers be careful not to upset any of them. And she apologized in advance for whatever Jack said.

The search was swift. She'd had patdowns at airline security that had taken longer. The police didn't even bother to search the outbuildings. Blair guessed that half of the officers realized that Todd hadn't killed Victor and the other half were just grateful that someone had.

Blair checked and saw that Hope was still asleep; unlike her mother and uncles, she could sleep through anything. Sam had woken, but was easily drifting away again. Jack sullenly advised Blair that obviously he hadn't been the one to break Scarface out of prison, since she practically had him on a leash.

Rather than text Starr and leave a record that they had been in touch, Blair walked out to the poolhouse and called that all was clear.

Then she got in her car and made her way to Capricorn. She wasn't ready to resume her conversation with Todd.

When she'd signed off on the delivery, though, she couldn't lose herself in the music or the crowd or Christian's friendly concern. She didn't want to see Todd—or even their children—right now, but there was nothing else she could do.

As she traveled home, she tried to find the words to answer Todd's accusations, spoken and unspoken. She gave up long before she turned into the drive. Nothing with Todd ever went as planned, anyway.

Todd was waiting for her in a shadowy corner of her bedroom. He waved off all attempts to resume their earlier conversation. He was all business in a way he rarely was except when he was at the Sun.

"That's not important. What's important is stopping Irene, and since you and Starr seem to have a problem with me killing her and the cops obviously can't hold her—the Llanview PD is incompetent, imagine that—I need to find a way to get her what she wants. You need to tell me everything she said at the will reading today. Every detail."

Blair did as Todd asked. He took notes diligently and occasionally asked for clarification, but he might as well have been interviewing a stranger. Even when she told him about punching Irene, he favored her with little more than a half-wistful smile.

It was the mention of Victor Lord's ring that made him shudder. "The same ring? The same one he gave me when he was going to cut out Natalie's heart?"

"I think so. You and I weren't exactly checking out each other's jewelry at the time."

"Speak for yourself."

"It was the one Victor Junior had when he was impersonating you, I'm sure of that much."

Todd pounded his fist against his thigh in frustration. "I wish I could remember them taking it when they brought me in. Things are a little messed up for a while after Mitch shut me in. I don't even know why that ring seems like—Jack has it now?"

"It was sitting on his dresser laughing at me when I went in to check on him after Bo and his men left."

"Could you get it?"

The soft, naked plea in his voice went straight to her heart. "Sure.

She knocked softly before entering Jack's room. The ring remained on the dresser, but Jack was not in his bed.

"Shit."


	4. Chapter 4

By the time Jack got himself out from under his mother's watchful eye, he didn't want to go see Irene anymore. He'd had time to think about how every fiber of his being was warning him away from her.

He remembered the last time he'd seen Spencer Truman. He'd snuck into Truman's hospital room, knowing that Truman had framed Victor-dad for murder, been responsible for the loss of at least one little brother, and helped Mom off the roof of a building. Truman had spoken to him like they were friends, like Jack would somehow take his side over his family's.

The revulsion he'd felt then, as a young boy, was the revulsion he felt now.

He remembered how his instincts had screamed at him that Eli Clarke would be the wicked stepfather to end all wicked stepfathers. He'd agreed to suppress his feelings at his mother's request… but eventually he'd been proven right.

The danger he'd felt radiating from Eli was the danger he felt radiating from Irene.

And when he set aside his determination not to betray Victor-dad, he didn't feel any of that coming from his biological father. Scarface. Scarface-dad. He was sensing anger and frustration, but a weird sort of safety too, almost as if subconscious memories of his babyhood were coming into play. It would be nice if Scarface-dad would say something about the whole pretending Jack was dead fiasco beyond "that happened," though. It was a stark contrast to the way Scarface-dad had apparently whimpered about Starr making the sun come out for him when he'd first seen her as a baby.

Jack scowled.

His instincts told him to go home and confess everything to his mother.

His memory of Victor-dad told him to stay away from Blair even if that meant throwing himself into something he knew perfectly well was stupid and dangerous and going to end badly. Anything else was disloyalty.

His pride told him that it was fantastic that he had managed to sneak out of the house despite Blair's obvious efforts, and since he'd managed it he was going to go somewhere forbidden.

His feet took him to Tea's house before he'd sorted all of that out.

This time, he was careful to make certain that there was no one around to hit him over the head as he approached the house. There was no rain to dull his senses now; he could see and hear everything, or rather, nothing. He was very much alone. The house was quiet and dark inside and out. Still, he decided to try his key in the back door instead of the front.

At first, Jack thought that either Irene or Tea must have changed the locks. An embarrassing flood of relief coursed through him when his key stuck. He would just have to go home. If he couldn't get into Victor-dad's house, maybe that was Victor-dad sending him a sign from the great beyond that it was all right to stop lying about Scarface-dad and let his mother and Starr be happy.

Then he remembered that this lock always stuck because no one ever used it. He pushed down harder on the key and the door swung open.

_Damn_.

He didn't turn on the lights. He told himself that that was because he didn't want to give Blair any clues that he was here if she had noticed his absence right away and come looking. He told himself that that was _not_ because whoever had really killed Victor-dad (and he was pretty sure it hadn't been Scarface-dad) might be lurking around. It _definitely_ was not because Irene's interest in him had been more sinister than genuine.

At the foot of the stairs, he heard the faintest hint of voices and strained his ears to hear more. One voice, he thought, was Irene; another, also female, was less familiar. He could feel tension radiating down the stairs in waves, but his fear suddenly evaporated. Now he was overwhelmed by curiosity. Slowly, he ascended the stairs.

The women were in the room Victor-dad had shared with Tea. That explained why he hadn't seen any light from outside; that room had the kind of curtains that blocked all light from either direction.

Sam's room was next door, and Jack slid inside. He crouched among the scattered action figures and pressed his ear against the wall.

Irene's voice was clear.

_"You had me torture my own son for eight years—"_

The other voice was softer.  
_  
"Spare me the righteous indignation. You know he's not your son, although I do appreciate that you commit to your character as if your life depended on it." A laugh. "Oh wait. It does."_

"Regardless, I would have a better chance of success if I knew what I was asking him for."

"He knows what you're asking for. If he doesn't, he'll figure it out. It's why he had his silly little girl break him out of jail."

"If he decides that the only way to solve the problem is to kill me, that doesn't get you any closer to it. I wouldn't be the first agent he's killed since he escaped."  
_  
"That's the beauty of framing him for Special V's murder. Or letting young Jack do it for us." _Jack's whole body jerked at the sound of his name. _"He's gotten a taste of being locked up again. He can't stand the idea of being away from them any longer."_

Jack pulled his knees to his chest and buried his face against them. They were talking like they were the ones who had murdered Victor-dad, and he was helping them.

If he were Blair or Starr, he would have stormed in there, taken them both down, and been hailed as a conquering hero.

But he wasn't. He was Jack. He was the one who did stupid things when he had a crowd to egg him on and only killed people by accident. He was the one Scarface-dad had thrown away at birth and who was always a distant second for Victor-dad, first to Starr and then to Dani.

He was the one who was going to slink out of the dark house with his tail between his legs and go home to his mother.

* * *

Todd grimaced as Blair deposited Victor Lord's ring in his outstretched palm. It was the same ring, all right, and at the edge of his mind he knew that there was something important about it. He didn't want to pull at that thread of a thought; it might send him spiraling into some catatonic mess of not knowing who the hell _he_ was, let alone what _it_ was.

But that wouldn't happen. Not while Blair was here. Blair had more power over him than a ridiculous ring ever could.

Blair was backing away from him.

"Where are you going?"

"I have to go back to Capricorn."

The lie manifested itself in her shaky voice and wild, desperate eyes.

He jumped in front of her and blocked the door. (Physically barricading a woman into her bedroom was not something he liked to do nowadays, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Besides, the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. He was only trying to sort out the stupid ring in the first place because he was trying to protect her, after all.)

Without even arguing, she thrust herself forward, as if she thought she could somehow run through him. Instinctively, he braced himself for the impact and closed his arms tightly around her.

"You never saw me play football," he whispered. "Keeping people from knocking us over and running in the other direction is actually what we do."

"Let me go." Her voice was muffled against his chest.

"It's not safe."

"It's just Capricorn."

"You aren't really going back to Capricorn right before it closes when you have two people on the run in your house with two small children and a teenage boy who—" He groaned. "You went in there to get the ring and he was gone, so you thought you'd go rescue him from Irene without me?"

Todd released Blair with some regret. The circumstances had been less than ideal, but having her pressed against his body was something he had dreamed of for eight long years. The sudden absence of her warmth left him empty and achy as he stormed down the hall to Jack's room. It was empty, as he had known it would be.

"Irene threatened your life," he told Blair. You are not going out there by yourself.

"I wasn't going to be by myself," she drawled, all Southern and superior. He loved it when she talked that way, but again, this was not the time. "I was going to call security."

"I got your security right here, Babe." He crossed his arms and locked eyes with hers. "Better than anything money can buy."

"You're going to get yourself killed or arrested."

"Probably, one of these days, but not tonight."

"You need to stay here with Starr and the kids in case the police do another search."

"Starr could handle the police by the time she was Sam's age." He grabbed Blair by the hand. "Jack may not like it or accept it right now, but he's my son, too, and it's my psycho mother he's looking for. You don't get to leave me out of the loop on this. I've been out of the loop for eight years."

He headed for the garage with Blair's fingers clutched tight in one hand and the ring still clutched in the other.

He could see Victor Lord's emaciated face, hear him whispering not to let this happen. Victor Lord hadn't given him the ring as a symbolic gesture, he had realized. When he'd been alone, he had removed the stone from the ring and found—

The door slammed.

"Jack?" Blair called.

"It's me," came the answer.

Todd scrambled back upstairs.

As much as he wanted to be in a position to overhear what Blair said to Jack, what he needed was to get inside the ring.

Starr's bedroom was empty; she was sleeping in another wing of the house so as not to make her presence too obvious to her brothers. Todd rummaged through her desk and found a Swiss army knife. His hands remembered what to do better than his mind, and in seconds he had extracted a microchip from behind the stone.

_It._

"Eight years of my life," he whispered.

He sank to the floor and rested his head against Starr's bed for a long moment. Then, resolutely, he crawled to Starr's closet. Far in the back hung a handful of Halloween costumes. He tucked the chip into the lining of a headband adorned with kitten ears.

Also in the back of the closet was a computer which had apparently been abandoned in favor of the new laptop on Starr's desk. Todd snapped it open and pried free a circuit that looked more or less like the chip he had removed from the ring.

"Looks more like the chip than Victor Junior looked like me, at least," he muttered, and forced the ring shut again. The fake would buy enough time to figure out what the hell was on the real chip. He had never actually known. He had taken the chip from Victor, and days later Mitch had been walling him into the mausoleum. Then… Baker and the chair and a thousand questions about it.

_It_.

_It_ that was now hidden in a Halloween costume he'd never seen his daughter wear. She'd worn it for a boy who hadn't been good enough for her and who had left her with a beautiful baby girl—and apparently not enough self-respect to demand the use of a condom.

_It_ that meant he couldn't go downstairs and see his son, who no longer accepted that he was his father.

_It_ that had given Blair enough time away from him to convince herself that they were strangers, and that she liked being alone. Or something. He wasn't actually sure, and that might have been the worst part.

* * *

Jack was glad that Blair had met him at the door. He was looking forward to her wrath, which would be so much more palpable and understandable than whatever he had overheard at Victor-dad and Tea's house.

He didn't get her wrath, though, at least not right away. He got a hug, which he returned gladly, and an "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Mom," he mumbled, and even though he wasn't fine at all, it almost felt like he was telling the truth.

"Where were you?"

"I went to Dad's house to see Irene."

"Did you see her?"

"No. She's creepy. I knew before I got over there that I didn't really want to—"

There was a knock at the front door. Furious that he was being interrupted in the middle of the night when he had finally decided to tell Blair the everything that included everything, Jack threw the door open. He was spoiling for an argument with the cops, or maybe he'd just tell them he'd lied about Scarface-dad so they didn't need to look for him.

But it wasn't McPain and his band of idiots at the door. It was Tea and Dani.

Because it was always his siblings who had bigger problems than he did when he wanted to talk to his parents.

"Mom's there," he pointed, and he went upstairs to his room without further comment.

He'd been hoping that they key sticking in the lock earlier that night had been a sign from Victor-dad. Now he knew that if Victor-dad had sent a sign, it was his favorite child Dani appearing just as Jack was about to betray his memory.

He muttered an obscenity and flung himself across his bed.


	5. Chapter 5

If it had just been Tea, Blair might have undone all the progress they'd made toward friendship in the past few years and slammed the door in her face. She needed to talk to Jack; Tea's timing could not have been worse.

But Dani was there, too. Dani was Todd's daughter and her children's sister, and a nice enough kid in and of herself. Blair couldn't do anything but offer a welcoming smile to the girl who had just lost her second "father" and her home.

"I know it's late," Tea began, "but I saw the light on and we wondered if we could take you up on your offer to stay here after all."

Dani had the grace to look embarrassed. Blair wondered where she'd gotten that from.

"… We just wanted to be around family. Dani needs her sister."

"You haven't heard?" Blair asked, genuinely surprised. In the back of her mind, the part of her that had loathed Tea snapped awake. Tea was looking for someone to punish for Victor's death, and she might well settle on Todd. She might have come here in the early hours of the morning to see if she could send Todd back to jail, and Starr with him. Anything to retaliate against the man who had taken his life back from Victor—and the girl who had foiled Victor's plan to escape to Hawaii in the last moments before he'd lost the Manning identity.

"I've had my head in case law ever since Irene announced she was evicting us."

"Except for the part where we got dragged out of the house in handcuffs," added Dani helpfully.

"You know why we had to do that," said Tea.

"It'll sound good on the witness stand," Dani informed Blair.

"Well," Blair drawled slowly. "Starr isn't here. She broke Todd out of prison this evening while we were at the will reading."  
_  
"She did what?" _The reaction convinced Blair that they really hadn't known. It was possible. Tea sometimes had tunnel vision when her eyes were on a prize, which in this case was invalidating Victor's supposed will.

"She believes that her father is innocent and that only he can protect us from Irene. The police are here every five minutes looking for them, like they'd be stupid enough to hide out here. You won't get the peace you both need staying here," Blair said. "You'd be a lot safer and more comfortable in a hotel."

Tea shook her head. "If Estrella turns up, she'll need her attorney and her sister. I can work through a few searches, and Dani can rest through them."

"Mom, she said no," Dani muttered under her breath.

"She didn't say no. Why don't you go get settled in that room next to Starr's where you usually stay?"

Dani took a step backwards. "I think I'll go stay with Destiny. I'll text her. She wakes up a thousand times every night so—"

"We're staying here, Daniela," Tea said firmly.

"Of course you're welcome," said Blair. She engulfed Tea in a hug and whispered in her ear. "You and Dani need alone time. Jack is in trouble again and we're going to be screaming at each other all night. Please check into a hotel so I can come visit you and your mini-bar. As a favor to me."

"All right," Tea said quietly. She returned the hug and stroked Blair's hair. "We'll talk tomorrow."

Blair locked the door behind them and ran up the stairs, surprised to find neither Jack nor Todd eavesdropping at the top.

She knocked on Jack's open door and was startled to see him seated at his desk with an algebra textbook propped up against the wall. The equations on the page swam before her tired eyes. Hell, the equations would have given her a headache even if she hadn't been exhausted. It always amazed her that academics came so effortlessly to both of her older children. That was part of why she hadn't seen how deeply Jack's troubles ran until it was too late. His grades had been excellent. What kind of out-of-control bully got excellent grades when his mother had barely made it through high school?

"Just doing my homework," Jack said calmly, like they always had this conversation at 2 in the morning. "Playing hooky and riding today—yesterday—was nice, but I have to get back to class, you know?"

He flipped to the back of the book to see if he had gotten the right answer. He had. He started on the next equation.

"It would be nice if all of our problems had answers in the back of the book," Blair tried.

"We don't get graded on getting the right answer. We get graded on the steps in between," Jack said flatly. "Don't you have to go talk to Tea and Dani?"

"They left," Blair said. "I'm sorry they interrupted us. I told them not to stay because you and I had to talk."

Jack's eyes flashed. "Don't lie to me. You told them not to stay because you don't want them to see Starr and Scarface."

Blair shook her head. "You were with me when your sister broke your father out of jail—"

"Yeah." Jack put down his pen and crossed his arms. "Yeah, and you'd be out of your mind worried if you didn't know exactly where Starr was. You'd be out of your mind worried if you really believed me when I said that Scarface was the one who killed Dad. You know where they are, and either they're going to come here or they're already here. So you're acting all calm and pretending you believe in me because you want to protect them. You're pretending you sent Tea and Dani away because of me, but it was because of them."

For the second time in as many minutes, Blair wondered if she might have been better off raising children who weren't quite so intelligent. She'd always praised Jack for being sensitive and perceptive, and now he was using those traits in the most inconvenient possible way.

"All right," she told Jack, neither confirming nor denying his conclusion. "What are you going to do?"

"My homework."

"You really don't need to go back to school tomorrow."

Jack looked at the clock. "A lot of the soccer guys are doing a morning run with the cross country team at six. I don't want to get busted down to JV because I never made the optional practices. You aren't allowed to do sports if you aren't in class that day."

"A few minutes ago, it seemed like you wanted to talk about Irene."

"That was a few minutes ago." Jack snapped his math book shut and opened a Spanish book in its place. "I hate Spanish," he added.

"Why are you still taking it? You could switch to a different language."

"Don't like Tea and Dani talking behind my back. Thought it would make Dad happy if I learned it," he grumbled.

"I think your _dad_ and your Uncle Victor would be happy if you felt a little better."

Jack snorted. "Scarface being in jail would make me feel better, and he's not going to go for that. Victor wouldn't even want me to have this conversation with you. He always told me not to trust you."

"I know you loved Victor. I did too—"

"He didn't love you. He thought you were an idiot."

Blair couldn't help cringing.

"Can I just do my homework now?"

There was a finality to the question that made Blair feel that backing off to regroup was her best bet. "Sure. But if you want to talk, come find me. Anytime. Anywhere. You are the most important thing in my life. As much as Starr and as much as Sam."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

Blair left it at that.

* * *

Back in her own bedroom, Blair slouched into a chair and did her best not to give in to the burning behind her eyes.

_"He didn't love you. He thought you were an idiot."_

That was nothing new.

Tomas had expected her to believe his ridiculous story about finding her wedding photo at a flea market—and for a while, she had. He had also seemed to think that she would still choose to be with him after he revealed that he had let her children spend eight years without their father. (She had set him straight on that score, at least.)

Eli had married her for her money and murdered her aunt, never expecting her to be any the wiser.

Spencer had strung her along with lies and manipulations until he'd been murdered midway through sexually assaulting her.

Even John, who was basically a good man, had somehow thought she wouldn't notice or care that Marty was the one he really wanted. Same with Cord and Tina. Christian had at least acknowledged that he'd had drunken sex with her only because he couldn't have Evangeline.

And Max… she didn't even want to think about Max. Or Skye. Or her suicide attempt.

But what could she really expect? She'd sold her virginity to a man old enough to be her grandfather, and then given it to Max. How could the rest of her life have gone any way but the way it had?

Todd had been the one who had wanted her because he wanted her, not as a trophy or a second choice or a source of income. She'd believed that for most of her adult life.

Then he'd told her that he had only convinced himself that he wanted her as some sort of penance, like a man debased enough to rape the pure innocence that was Marty Saybrooke deserved to be saddled with Blair. Tea, he admired and loved and respected; Blair, he tolerated, some of the time.

That had turned out to be Victor. But what had Victor been if not a blank slate programmed to behave the way Todd would? In the beginning, he'd kissed her like he couldn't get enough of her. The first time they'd made love, it had felt disconcertingly like making love to Todd. She thought of Sam and remembered how Victor had submitted to Margaret's advances in the hopes of protecting her and Starr and Jack; she remembered how terrified Victor had been that she wouldn't want him when she realized what had happened.

That Victor could have persevered through Margaret's and Asa's efforts to separate their family only to decide that Blair, Starr, and Jack disgusted him surely meant that Todd could as well.

If Todd had kissed her with all the passion in the world at the premiere, it was only because he had wanted to prove his identity. Besides, he'd been stuck in time warp for eight years; eight years ago, Victor had acted like he loved her, too. Todd just needed more time to realize that he actually wanted Tea. He was already realizing it, perhaps. Sometimes he treated Blair like a treasure; sometimes he screamed at her that it was her fault that Victor had been able to replace him and she'd done a terrible job raising their children.

She didn't need Todd or anyone else to tell her that. Her daughter had had a baby at 16; her son was a killer at 15.

"Blair."

The soft whisper sent her bolting out of her chair.

"I didn't mean to scare you."

"Then you shouldn't have been sneaking around my room in the dark."

"I sort of thought you'd expect me to be here." Todd held out his hand, slowly and hesitantly, and then brushed his fingers against her arm. "You're still shaking."

"I am not," she said, even though she was.

"It's all right. I'm scared too," said Todd casually. "You and Tea hugging and petting each others' hair like you were at a damn sleepover? That was scary. When did you start liking each other?"

"When we grew up and realized that our children are siblings so we have to get along."

"I hope not."

"You'd rather we tried to pit Starr and Dani against each other? Or maybe stick them in the middle of some kind of platonic Romeo and Juliet thing, because that went so well with Starr and Cole?"

"No. I mean I hope you're not grown up." He smiled softly at her. "I don't think you are. Do you remember when we first got my Lord money and we went to the toy store? You went rolling around Dorian's stupid apartment on roller skates."

"That was a long time ago. I'm a little wiser now."

"Wiser isn't giving up on roller skates or throwing people out of windows. Wiser is when you realize you did something wrong and try to do better the next time. Like when I came home from Ireland."

Blair shuddered. She couldn't believe that Todd was actually going to bring that up.

"You thought I was dead. You missed me. You just wanted to be near me, but I took a shower and slept on the couch. I know you remember that because you brought it up in every fight we had for the next five years. And I was wrong not to see things from your point of view. I was wrong to think that you having sex with the McPoet when you thought I was dead meant that you were lying about loving me. I should have taken you in my arms. I'd like to change that this time." He held his arms open. "You've had a long day and you need a few hours of sleep. I know you have trouble sleeping alone when you're worried."

Blair swallowed hard. Nothing had ever sounded as good as lying in Todd's arms. She could pretend not to be the woman no one wanted. She could pretend not to be alone.

Pretending wasn't going to get anyone anywhere. Learning that Victor had only been pretending to love her had almost killed her. It had taken years to get her mind and soul around it.

"I don't think that's a good idea," she told him.

"Is it because you know you'll jump my hot bod if you get too close to me?"

Blair clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing too loudly.

"That's why I couldn't go to bed with you when I came home from Ireland. I knew that if I got that close to you, I'd be intimate with you, and if I was one kind of intimate with you, I'd be every kind of intimate with you. I wasn't ready for that."

It made so much sense that it had to be true. But that had been many years ago. Todd's feelings were changing, even if he didn't know it.

"So?" Todd prompted.

"I'm not going to sleep," she told him. "The kids have to get ready for school in a few hours. Sam has to bring his lunch because they're having an indoor picnic, Hope has morning session preschool this month, and Jack wants to be at school early for something with soccer."

"No way. I don't think the kids should be at school today. Not with Irene on the loose. At least not the little ones. Hope is so quiet she probably wouldn't scream if some goon grabbed her, and Sam's such a daredevil he'd forget he's not supposed to go off with strangers."

"You would know," said Blair. She wasn't going to listen to Todd judge her for raising children who were easy to kidnap. He was usually the one who kidnapped them.

"Yes, I would. Sorry about that. I needed to get Victor's attention. You know I'd never hurt Sam. Can you say the same for Irene?"

"I'll call Shaun," Blair conceded. "Make sure he's got someone with them."

"Maybe they can go to Viki's? Keep a little protection around Jessica's kids, too, without upsetting her or telling her why."

"All right," Blair agreed. She was too tired to argue. But not tired enough to wrap herself into Todd's arms and close her eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

There was a lengthy scuffle on the other side of Llanfair's front door. Blair understood why when it finally swung open to reveal Jessica's daughter Bree, who brightly greeted Sam and Hope.  
_  
"Bree, you know you're not supposed to answer the door by yourself." _Viki's scolding voice preceded her.

"But it's Sam and Hope!" Bree bellowed.

This was one time that Blair was pleased to be less than an afterthought. Her son and granddaughter had a young cousin who was delighted to see them unexpectedly. That sense of family was something she had painfully, deeply wanted for her children.

"Hello, Blair, Sam, Hope" said Viki as she entered the room. "Were Sam and Bree going to school together today?"

"This wasn't planned," Blair informed her with a meaningful glance at three children.

Viki followed Blair's gaze. "Bree, why don't you take Sam and Hope to see if Mommy and Aunt Natalie need help with the babies?"

The three of them scrambled upstairs.

"This has something to do with Todd breaking out of prison, doesn't it?" Viki asked without preamble.

"You might say that."

"Have you heard from him? Is he all right?"

Blair nodded, not wanting to confirm exactly what she knew aloud. "But between this and Irene's behavior at the will reading yesterday, I'm concerned about Sam and Hope's safety." It was always best to lie only by omission whenever possible. "I wondered if they could stay here today. Shaun or one of his people would come over to do the actual security-"

"Security?" Jessica charged into the foyer with Ryder on her hip. "You don't want to bring security over here- Natalie might think he's a police officer and that that means she has to sleep with him."

Natalie was half a step behind with Liam in her arms. "This is about Irene and that creepy fixation with Victor Lord you told us about, right? Because the last time someone changed Victor Lord's will, I almost got my heart cut out and Todd was the one who took me to the operating room."

Blair winced. Natalie noticed.

"Blair, it was the whole drugging me and shooting Christian thing that I had a problem with. I would have come as bait to save you voluntarily. See, unlike some people I think other people matter. Liam's already been kidnapped once, right, Wes? So I want to protect him this time, like you want to protect Chloe- I mean, Hope."

"That wasn't me," said Jessica, looking sick.

"Girls! That's enough!" Viki snapped.

"She started it," said Natalie in a tone that would have done Bree or Sam proud.

"When did _I_ have a baby with _your_ fiance?" Jessica jerked her head in Liam's direction.

Blair headed toward the stairs, calling over her shoulder that obviously Sam and Hope were too much of an imposition today and she would bring them elsewhere. As she had known it would, the fighting stopped instantly amidst reassurances that Hope and Sam were welcome and safe.

Blair called Shaun to confirm the location and discussed possible activities for the children's day while she awaited his arrival.

* * *

Starr wandered through the disconcertingly empty house. For years, she had wished for more time. More time to spend with Hope while keeping up with school; more time for friends and boyfriends; more time to be a normal teenager; more time for singing and reptiles and things she just liked.

Now Hope was off somewhere safe and Starr couldn't very well go to class unless she wanted to get arrested. Her friends had drifted off to their own adventures and she hadn't exactly had time to make many new ones in between potty training and playgroup. She knew James wouldn't tell anyone where she was if she called him, but she didn't want to make him an accessory.

Her current life as college student-slash-teenage mother and her past life as Todd Manning's partner in crime were colliding, and they weren't exactly meshing seamlessly.

"Dad?' she asked the empty hall. There was no answer. "Dad, you better not have gone off to meet Irene without telling Mom and me. At least not without telling me! I didn't break you out of prison so you could get yourself killed!"

There was no answer.

She searched the house from top to bottom and found herself completely alone, like the last survivor in some post-apocalyptic nightmare.

Post-_Irene_ nightmare.

Maybe Irene had gotten to them all—Hope and Sam and Jack and Mom and Dad. She had to go find them. She had to call the police. She had to find a gun and finish Irene off like Dad had wanted to do in the first place.

She sprinted to her bedroom to find her jacket. Instead, she found Todd seated cross-legged on her bed toying with a stuffed alligator that Starr decided not to tell him had been a gift from James.

"Dad?"

There was no answer.

"Dad? Didn't you hear me calling?"

Todd startled as if she had materialized unexpectedly. For an instant, there was a vacant expression on his face, followed by one of confusion. Then his eyes focused on Starr.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Just thinking."

"Didn't you hear me?" she repeated.

"People in China heard you." Todd bounced off the bed; the alligator lay forgotten.

Starr watched her father closely. He seemed like himself again, not that she was even sure who he was supposed to be after eight years.

She did notice that his shirt was hanging strangely. She lunged forward to grab at it.

"What the idea?" Todd demanded.

"You're wearing a bulletproof vest," Starr accused.

"Irene threatened to kill all of us if she didn't get her little toy. You won't let me shoot her, so I have to give it back. There aren't any other options."

"Does that mean you know what she wants?"

"Right here." Todd pointed to the ring he wore on his finger.

"Isn't that the ring Irene gave Jack yesterday? Why would she give it away if she wanted it back?"

"She didn't know what she had. There was a computer chip hidden underneath the stone."

"What's on the computer chip?"

"I don't know."

"You're going to give it back to her without finding out what it is?"

"I'm kind of under a deadline, here. Unless you have an all-purpose 8-year-old microchip reader?"

"No, but, what if there's information there that she's going to use to blow up the world or something?"

"That wouldn't be it. Her connections are so high up that if she wanted to blow up the world she'd just use the Pentagon's supplies." He reached over Starr's head for a small cane and tophat sitting on the top shelf of her desk. Starr didn't remember putting them there. In fact, she knew she would never have left them there; they were supposed to be a surprise for both Hope and Todd.

"Is this for Peanut for Halloween?" Todd looked so touched that all other thoughts vanished from Starr's head. It was overwhelming to see how much her real father loved Hope. This was a man who would have been horrified to knock her down a flight of stairs while she was pregnant, whether he'd knocked her down by accident or not. This was a man who would never, never have considered kidnapping her child (regardless of what he'd done with Jack).

This was a man who wouldn't have backed her and Cole into the corner of having unprotected sex before they were ready in the first place. If Todd had never been replaced with Victor, Starr would never have had Hope.

Her eyes flooded with tears at the thought. A life without Hope was incomprehensible. If given the choice, Starr would have to choose a world where her father was beaten and shocked and tortured every day for eight years over a world without Hope. She would have to choose to have Todd startle with fear when someone entered a room and slip into vacant trances.

Sobs rose in her throat.

"Don't—don't cry like that, Shorty."

She brushed off Todd's hands. She couldn't take comfort from someone who had spent eight years in agony when she wouldn't even go back and stop it if she could.

Maybe she _had_ known, subconsciously. At first, she had despised the man who called himself Walker Lawrence. But then she had accepted him as Todd Manning.

_"Starr has such a special bond with her daddy," _everyone had said. _"If she says Walker is Todd, Walker must be Todd."  
_  
Victor had reminded her of it the night of the Vickerman premiere when she'd seen Todd and Victor together for the first time.

_"You believed me then. You believe me now. You didn't send a man to a torture chamber because you didn't know your own father, did you? You didn't turn everyone's world upside down because you would have replaced your daddy with anything that walked through the door, did you?"  
_  
The sobs came harder. She couldn't catch her breath.

"Starr, if this is about that Halloween costume—"

That was the most ridiculous thing Starr had ever heard, and Starr was a Manning.

"I'm sorry," she managed to choke out.

"What for? Did you put piranhas in my bathwater? Because I didn't even notice. I like piranhas better than most of the people in this town."

That wasn't funny. She wasn't going to laugh. At anything. Ever again.

"I'm sorry I didn't stop Victor from taking your life," she tried, even though she had just realized that she wasn't, really, because no Victor would have meant no Hope. No Sam, either, come to think of it. What would their family be without Sam?

"Not your fault," Todd said harshly. "Not your fault at all, Shorty. You were a child. You're still a child. They knew everything about you and they set it all up to trick you. You never had a chance. No one could have."

Starr kept crying. Todd watched helplessly. His instincts had always been to give Starr whatever she wanted to keep her from being sad. Now there was nothing to give her other than his time.

And his time was spoken for.

This was the perfect opportunity. Blair was over at Viki's dropping off the babies. The only one he had to shake before his meeting with mommy dearest was Starr. He'd gone into her bedroom in the first place to see if it would inspire him.

He'd considered drugging her. The Crazy Cramer Coven being what it was, there was sure to be something useful in Dorian's medicine cabinet. But he knew that Blair had a dangerous allergy to a certain kind of anesthesia. Starr might have inherited it, and it might be linked to some of the sedatives.

He'd considered locking her in a room. But he'd spent most of eight years locked in a room; he couldn't do that to Starr, even for a minute. Visions of her being trapped in a fire filled his head. Never mind that locking someone in a basement hadn't worked out well for Jack in the recent past.

He'd considered tossing her in the swimming pool and making a run for it. But as determined as his Shorty was, he couldn't be sure that that would leave him enough time.

As always, Starr had offered him the perfect solution. He could leave her sobbing hysterically with guilt, and it wouldn't occur to her to chase him.

It would make him feel like a douche, but that was nothing new.

He ignored Starr's flailing arms and lifted her up, depositing her facedown on her bed. She barely weighed more than she had when he'd left. How had this tiny little girl managed to have a baby of her own?

"I love you, Shorty," he said, caressing her back.

Then he silently backed out of her room and headed for Irene's new headquarters.

Irene wasn't hard to find. She was looking out the front window when he arrived, as if she were waiting for him.

He raised his fist. "I have it right here."

"Where was it?" she demanded.

He opened his fist. "Victor Lord's ring. You had it all along. Victor Lord gave it to me eight years ago with the microchip hidden underneath. I might've remembered it sooner if you hadn't shocked me and drugged me so many times."

She shrugged. "Trial and error. Give me the ring."

"I want a guarantee of my family's safety."

"You have it. If I wanted to kill them, I would have killed them. There's no point in killing them now when I may need them in the future."

"Why would you need them in the future?"

"Leverage over you, of course, my son. I never could control you like I could my Victor. It's why I chose him to begin with."

"And you gave me to Peter Manning of all people."

"An interesting social experiment, wasn't it? A baby who was already selfish and defiant and impulsive and a sadist who couldn't be trusted with a puppy." She laughed.

Todd felt the last vestiges of the Irene he'd read about in the diary so many years ago- the woman who had wanted him and tried to give him to a loving home- slip away. Both of his fathers had been vile child abusing scum, but at least he had had the idea that his mothers had been good women who loved him even if they were too weak to protect him.

Now he was certain that there had been born from a revolting partnership between two equally disgusting participants who had loathed him from his birth, if not before.

"The ring!" Irene prompted.

"Gladly." Todd dropped it on the rug, pleased to be free of it.

* * *

Jack spent the early hours of the morning catching up on his homework as much as he could. Except for God damn Spanish, which always reminded him of how Victor-dad had liked Dani better than him, the work came naturally to him. No one was ever impressed, though; Starr had been the family genius until she got pregnant and then Dani had taken her place. His good grades had only really been useful after he'd started bullying Shane Morasco. No one had thought that Jack Manning—rich, handsome, athletic, smart—would do such a thing. At least, no one had thought that until it was too late and Gigi Morasco was dead.

At 5:30, he packed his bag and got ready for school. Outside, it was still as dark as it had been when he'd spied on Irene. Night seemed to last forever.

The long run with the soccer team was invigorating instead of tiring. No one knew how to talk to him at his locker or in the cafeteria, but everyone knew how to act during a workout. It was like riding that stupid horse the day before. While he was running with the team, he fit with them.

During class, everyone stared and whispered as usual, except for Shane, who sullenly looked in the other direction. Just to confuse the hell out of everyone, Jack raised his hand in every class (except Spanish; there were limits) and answered questions correctly.

As much as he hated the stares and the whispers, Jack hung around school for as long as he could. School was better than home. Home was where Mom and Scarface-dad and Starr and probably even Sam and Hope were having their mutual admiration society bonding time and giggling over how Jack was so dumb that he'd thought that Mom had actually believed him about Scarface.

At first he didn't notice when a car pulled up alongside basketball court where Jack had been engaged in a half-assed game of around the world.

"Dude, isn't that your mom?"

Jack looked. Blair waved.

Jack recognized the message in that wave—he could get into the car or there would be a very big scene that would give Jack's classmates something else to gossip about. (Having your classmates think your mother was hot was a major inconvenience.)

Resolutely, Jack got into the front seat beside his mother. The doors locked themselves all around them. They drove silently until they were on the highway.

"All right," said Blair. "I don't think anyone is going to interrupt us now."


	7. Chapter 7

Starr tried hard to keep a scowl on her face. Todd had taken advantage of her complete emotional breakdown to sneak off after his psychotic mother without letting anyone give him any kind of backup.

But she couldn't stay mad at him. She had never been able to stay mad at him. She always knew he was sorry, even if he didn't say it. She always knew he was doing his best to protect his family even when the way he went about it was completely illogical. She wouldn't change a thing about him.

She kept herself from shuddering. No, the "changed" version of Todd hadn't worked out for anyone except maybe Tea.

As always, Todd seemed to know the minute she had forgiven him. "So, what do you want to do tonight? I'm thinking we'll wait until tomorrow morning to turn ourselves in. Less chance of you having to stay in jail overnight that way."

Starr crossed her arms and put on her best "tough" face. "I don't think I'd mind. You've been getting me ready for jail since I could talk."

Todd returned a wry smile. "But I never wanted you to end up there. No matter what your mother thinks."

"Mom is... well, a lot of things happened while you were gone. Obviously."

"Maybe now is a good time for you to catch me up on some of them."

Starr had never felt less like doing anything in her life. "Speaking of Mom, this is her necklace. I was cleaning my room today- not like there was anything else to do, stuck in here- and I realized I never gave it back." She sensed rather than heard Todd following at her heels as she walked into her mother's bedroom. "Maybe we can watch a movie. There are some good ones that you missed."

Starr snapped open Blair's jewelry box and dropped the necklace inside. Todd reached out a hand to keep Starr from closing the box again. With one finger, her caressed the earrings Blair had worn at their first real wedding and again to the Vickerman premiere

"What's going on between you and Mom?" Starr asked, because it was physically impossible not to ask. "I know you talked last night."

"We talked and she didn't say anything. Kind of like you didn't say anything just now when I asked you..."

Starr held a finger to her lips, but it was unnecessary. Todd had heard Blair and Jack's voices coming closer, too.

As one, Todd and Starr backed into the closet to wait for Blair and Jack to move down the hall to Jack's room. Instead, though, Jack and Blair turned into Blair's room.

Starr's eyes sought Todd's in the darkness. They had two choices, and neither one of them was any good. They could leave the closet and reveal themselves to Jack, which would sabotage Blair's plan to gain Jack's trust even if Jack didn't call the police and turn them all in. Alternatively, they could stay in the closet and eavesdrop, violating Jack and Blair's privacy. (Jack, obviously, deserved it, but Blair really didn't even if she had forced them all into this moronic plan about pretending to believe Jack when he accused Todd of murder.)  
_  
"Why are you looking around like that?"_ Blair asked. _"You think someone's going to jump out from under the bed?"_

_"When Tea and Dani came over in the middle of the night, it felt like a sign."_

"A sign we shouldn't talk."

"I know it sounds stupid. But if it happened again..."

"That would mean it wasn't just a coincidence?"

"Yeah," said Jack huskily.

That was it, then. Starr and Todd's list of bad options had just been reduced from one to zero. There was no way in hell Starr was going to be a sign that Jack was supposed to carry on lying to Blair and keeping Todd locked up.

Naturally, Blair had a closet that was bigger than any of the freshman dorm rooms at Llanview University. Starr and Todd could settle in for the night if they had to.

Starr sank to the plush blue carpet and leaned her back against a full-length mirror. Todd sat down beside her, and Starr dropped her head to his shoulder, enjoying the feel and scent of him if not the situation.

Outside, there were rustling sounds. A few drawers opened and closed.  
_  
"No one hiding under the bed. No one hiding in the drawers," _Blair told Jack.

_"I'm not kidding."_

"I know this is hard, son. But sometimes the worst part is the waiting. When whatever it is finally happens, you can start to deal with it. You take the power back."

"I can't take the power back. I never had the power."

Starr rolled her eyes. She imagined that Shane and Gigi Morasco would beg to differ.

In fact, Jack's lie about Todd was the reason she had had to break their father out of prison and had spent the day on perverted house arrest. It was the reason she was stuck here now. Jack's spoiled brat decisions had been controlling all of them for a long time.

And here he was whining about not having power.

Starr resolved not to feel guilty about eavesdropping anymore. It was Jack's own damn fault.

_"How do you mean?"_

Apparently even Blair hadn't been able to make sense of that one.

_"I definitely didn't have a choice about all of a sudden my dad not being my dad, and some other guy showing up and saying he was my real dad. What other family does that ever happen to?"_

Starr agreed with that, at least. It did have a way of making you feel like a worthless piece of crap.

_"There's exactly one comparable case. That's how I chose the attorney I've been talking to about getting Todd's property back in his hands."_

Starr listened with interest. She hadn't known that her mother had called an attorney about that. From the way Todd tensed beside her, she didn't think that he'd known, either.

_"So it happened to someone before. It still sucks. It turns everything upside down. And then the only dad I ever knew died, and it sucked even more."_

"I'm not going to argue about that. But you weren't doing so well even before things went wrong with your Uncle Victor."

"Eli was a psycho stepfather who wanted to kill everybody."

Starr snarled inwardly. No way did Jack get to throw Eli at Blair like that. If he kept it up, she was going to burst out of the closet and give him the beating he deserved. She'd never liked her mother's stupid plan anyway, so blowing it sky-high at the worst possible moment would have a certain charm.

Todd took her hand, which she hadn't realized she had clenched into a fist.

_"I am so sorry about bringing Eli into your life. Eli and- yesterday we were talking about Spencer. I think that was even worse for you since you were so young and so attached to him."_

"It's not about being sorry. It's about, every time things are going okay, something happens. We're happy, and then Dad- Victor- ends up on death row. We're happy, and then it turns out Spencer is a psycho and Sam is out there somewhere and Victor goes away for forever looking for him. We're happy, and then Starr gets pregnant. That was the worst."  
  
This time, Starr really would have jumped to her feet if Todd hadn't been holding her hand so tightly.

_"Why was that the worst?"_

"We were never a family again after that. Starr was always his partner, but that was all right because that meant you and I were partners, too. Right?"

"Right." It sounded like Blair was getting choked up.

_"Then when she got pregnant, he didn't want her anymore."_

The fight drained out of Starr abruptly. She knew it was true. She'd lived through it, after all. It still hurt to hear Jack say it so succinctly.

She thought she'd done enough crying for a decade or so that morning and gotten everything out of her system. But silent tears slid out of her aching eyes and down her cheeks.

This time, instead of sneaking off, Todd tugged her into his arms and put her head on his chest.

_"So since he didn't want her, she took you. Because he was mean to her, you wouldn't let Sam and me see him."_

"He was a little more than mean to her, Jack. He endangered her and Hope."  
  
THANK YOU! Starr sent sniffling, appreciative thought waves in her mother's direction. She was awfully tired of being the villain of this piece when Jack was the one who had killed a woman and then gotten their father locked up for a crime he hadn't committed.

_"Not on purpose. He didn't throw her down those stairs on purpose!"_

Todd hugged Starr harder. Starr tried to hug back. She knew that she wasn't the one who was the most likely to charge out of the closet any longer. But while she wanted to slap Jack across his smug, spoiled face, Todd wanted to dig up Victor's body so he could kill him again.

At the moment, Starr would have been fine with that.  
_  
"No, but he was completely unremorseful. He was unremorseful for attacking Cole and Langston and Markko, all of whom were children at the time. I couldn't put my children at risk, Jack, you mean too much to me."_

"No matter why you did it, I didn't have a chance to get to... you had Starr, and I had no one, and then Dani showed up and he had Dani and you had Starr and I was one kid too many. He thought you and Starr were trash and I had to work really hard to make him think I wasn't trash, too."

"All right, Jack Cramer Manning."

Starr's stomach jumped with anticipation. Jack had gotten the middle name treatment. Blair was finally going to go thermal on him, like she should have done months before.

_"Do you have any idea how lucky you are? You have this huge family that loves you so much. You know, I never had that growing up. I went from foster home-"_

"Foster home to foster home. I remember."

"Well, maybe you don't remember it like I remember it. Cause I'm telling you right now, it was no piece of cake. Even the good homes had too many kids, so I know what it's like to be lost in the shuffle. And I'm telling you right now, that never happened to you. Not one single day of your little life. And for you to sit there and you to tell that to me, that's a cop-out! Because I've been there for you! I've had your back! I've been beside you all the time because I love you, son. I love you, and I'm always gonna love you, and nothing is gonna change that! Do you hear me?"  
_  
"I love you, too, Mom."_ Jack's voice cracked._ "Why are you pretending that you believe what I said about Scarf- this Original Recipe Todd guy knocking me out and killing Victor?"_

"Because that's how much I want you to feel safe. I want you to remember that I am on your side, on your team, getting your back, supporting you. Why did you tell me that the Original Recipe guy knocked you out and killed Victor?"

"Because Victor was dead and I wanted to try to make him proud of me one more time. I knew he would have wanted me to do it."

_"The other day you caught Sam eating a whole box of cookies in bed. You didn't let him do it even though he wanted to."_

"It would have made him sick."

"You were a good brother to Sam by not giving him what he wanted. Even if Victor does want you to lie about your father, maybe you can be a good nephew by letting him come to terms with what happened instead of putting it off with lies and manipulations that are just going to hurt all the people he loved along with your father."  
_  
"But it's different. I don't owe Sam anything. Victor saved me. I got into a mess and- I didn't mean for it to happen, Mom."_

"What?" Blair prompted gently.  
_  
"You know what."_

"I'd like to hear you say it."

There was a rustling sound, like Blair had put her arm around Jack the same way Todd had his arm around Starr. They were back in the old teams.  
_  
"Brad and I- it was mostly my idea to make up a girl on MyFace."_

"After I took away your phone and your computer and deleted your MyFace account."  
_  
"Yeah, after that."_ Jack's narrative took on the hollow tone of someone who had gone over these events in his mind too many times. _"He dropped a weight on my foot and everyone laughed and said I deserved it. So I had to get him back. So this made up girl, she flirted with Shane. Then she invited him to this party. The address was a house Brad's family owns. We went in- Brad and Beth and me. We turned up the music. When someone came to the door and yelled, Beth answered and the door opened. Since I was the biggest, I grabbed- I thought it was Shane, I was so wired up that we were pulling it off for real- we closed the door. We put a chair under the door to keep it shut. I- I swear to God I didn't know anything about the generator. Five minutes later, not even, I wanted to let her out. I wanted to let her out, and Brad said if I did everyone would keep laughing about Shane dropping the weight on my foot and Shane would be proud of himself and I'd lose. So I let- so I went along with it. And then we found out it was Gigi, not Shane, and the generator- she died and I killed her and there's nothing I can do to fix it and I can't sleep and I can't think and I hurt all the time and I'm so so sorry but Victor said I was the only one he could tell and I couldn't talk to you especially any more and he went away and he's never coming back and she's never coming back."_

Starr and Todd leaned their heads against each other, both feeling awful for Jack. There was a long moment of silence where all four of them breathed shallow, pained breaths together. Starr wasn't sure where she ended and her parents and brother began.

_"Thank you for telling me, Jack. I'm proud of you."_

"Me too," Todd whispered, and Starr poked him to make him be quiet.

_"I love you so much."_

Jack's whisper was so low that Todd and Starr barely caught it.

_"Why?"_

_"Because you're brave enough and strong enough to face the truth when you make a mistake. Because even though you give Sam a hard time sometimes, you also help him get his coat on and save him from himself when he steals a box of cookies. Because I love to go riding with you and I love watching you play soccer. I love that you're funny even though I don't always get your jokes. I love that when you were little you wanted pet lizards because you wanted to be like Starr. I love that you always had a sense about people and things and you knew how other people felt. I love that when you were a little boy and had nightmares, the magic word to make you feel better changed every night. I love that you love horror movies, but you love fairy tales too- and I know you do, don't pretend you don't."_

_"Maybe," _Jack conceded.

_"Mostly, I love your hair."_ Jack half-laughed and the bedsprings squeaked as Blair ruffled Jack's hair. _"The most amazing hair I've ever seen. Look in the mirror, it looks perfect when I've just finished messing it up."_

"Mom?"

"Son?"

"If you love me so much, why did you go back to the man who gave me away and told you I was dead?"

It was Starr's turn to take Todd's hand like he'd taken hers at the beginning of the conversation. It felt like a very long time had passed.  
_  
"You couldn't let me see Victor because he hurt Starr," _Jack continued. _"But Todd gave me away and that was fine?"_

"No, it wasn't fine. Believe me," Blair growled. _"It was about as far from fine as you can get. I took you and I took your sister and we went to Hawaii with bodyguards. I had no intention of letting your father see you ever again. He followed us, of course, paid off the bodyguards. Ross, the man Dani thought was her father?"_

"Right, I know all about the gross island stuff. Wish I didn't."

"You and me, both. Starr missed him so much. I couldn't keep her away from him, not unless I chained her to the wall. Probably not even then."

Starr nodded her head in the affirmative.

_"You and he missed each other too. When you were a baby, he'd hold you and you'd stare at him, just mesmerized. I know you don't remember it, but you loved him. You needed his touch. You needed his voice. I knew he would never hurt you on purpose, and he never has."_

"But that- that could have changed. With Victor, he was programmed to be this guy, right? That's how he fooled you and Starr and everybody."

Blair didn't answer. Starr couldn't look at Todd or squeeze his hand.

_"He used to love us. You and me and Starr. I remember one time there was a thunderstorm. Starr came and got me. We ran into your room- she pretended I was the one who was scared and you called her on it. We all slept in bed together that night and I knew that there was no one in the whole world who loved each other like the four of us did."_

Starr swallowed down the bile rising in her throat. She remembered that night. Unlike Jack, she knew that it was the first time the four of them had been together after Margaret Corcoran had kidnapped Victor and Asa Buchanan had sweetened the pot by faking Blair's death.

She'd been basking in the togetherness. Meanwhile, her real father had been less than halfway through eight years of torture.

_"Then there was another time. I wanted to build a fort in the living room at the penthouse with pillows and blankets. We all got in there together and ate pizza and watched a horror movie, which was a lot less scary than that DVD of Starr in the school musical that you made us watch. We were a family. He looked at you and me and Starr like we were everything. But that changed. You know that changed. He talked about you and Starr like you were dirt on the bottom of his shoe. And I was kind of all right with it, because that meant I was beating Starr for once. How do you know this guy hasn't changed, too, if Victor was supposed to act like him?"_

Todd banged his head against the mirror behind him. Starr grabbed him to make him stop. Luckily, Jack and Blair seemed to be too entranced in their conversation to hear.

_"We don't know, Jack. Even if all of that were true, you can't keep pretending that you saw Todd at Victor's house when you didn't. It hurts you too much. It keeps the police from finding the real killer. It keeps you from getting to know your real father. I think you'd like him."_

"Do you think he'd like me?"

"He adores you, Jack. He always did and he still does. I saw him watching you at the Vickerman premiere and at Viki's when they were running DNA tests. He can't get over how great he thinks you are."

There was a sniffling sound, and footsteps. Jack must have gotten off the bed. He was done talking. They'd almost survived. Starr sat tensely next to Todd and hoped neither of them did anything to blow it.

Jack said something inaudible.

_"Okay, what?"_

"Can you take me to the police station so I can tell them the truth about Todd and Gigi?"

"How about tomorrow? That will give your lawyer a chance to-"

"Tea was here in the middle of the night. She could show up when we want her to."  
  
_"I don't think Tea is the best person to help us with this. Between Victor dying and Irene's will putting her out of that house, she's so frazzled lately. We need someone it will be just business with. Someone who didn't know Gigi and isn't emotionally invested. I've spoken to a man who has a great record in these situations."_

"The same one you talked to about the identity confusion thing?"

"They're friends, actually, one referred me to the other. They practice in Chicago, but they've both agreed to get here within a few hours' notice."

"That part of the police station will be closed by then. McPain won't be there."  
  
_"I'm not a lawyer, but I think you'd better not call him McPain while you're explaining that you lied."_

"Please, Mom. Like you said, the waiting and not knowing- please, can we do it now? Just tell McPain what we're going to tell him without officially telling him?"  
  
Blair sighed._ "All right. You're right, you need to get this off your chest. Go wash your face. Wait. Come back."  
_  
They didn't hear anything, but Starr knew Blair must be hugging Jack.

_"Love you. Proud of you."_

For a few minutes, there were footsteps and water running. Then quiet.

When the silence stretched, Starr and Todd got stiffly to their feet and stumbled into the empty room, blinking in the last orange rays of the setting September sun.


	8. Chapter 8

Jack was too tired to say anything, or even look at his mother, by the time he strapped himself into the passenger seat of her car. He hadn't slept at all in for two days, but he had managed to get in a few workouts and his body was screaming with exhaustion. Admitting out loud what had happened with Gigi- and with Scarface-dad, too- left his mind just as worn out as his body.

In spite of that, his skin felt like it was on fire and his leg was bouncing up and down of its own accord.

Blair slid her eyes sideways and, with real effort, Jack forced himself to be still. "Sorry."

Twitching like an idiot- or Wheezy's dad- was something Jack could apologize for. Getting Gigi killed was not. His fingers curled themselves around the armrest and held on. He watched his knuckles grow white but had no way of loosening his grip. He might have to cut his own arm off to get himself into the police station.

Blair didn't acknowledge any of that. "I talked to Mickey Horton. He'll be here tomorrow morning. He doesn't like what you're doing, but he says he understands."

"That's the lawyer?" Jack asked. His voice was hoarse and shaky. McPain was going to have a great time with him, he just knew it. McPain didn't have Victor-dad to kick around anymore, so he was going to take everything out on Jack. That was how McPain worked. He had his favorites- people like Cole and Marty and- who never had to pay for anything. Then he had his usual suspects- people like Victor and Jack- who were always wrong even when they were right. This time Jack really _was_ wrong, more wrong than he had ever imagined being, so whatever punishment McPain found was sure to be a living hell.

"Mmm-hmm."

"My lawyer is some guy named after a mouse?"

Blair laughed more than it was worth and Jack jumped at the unexpected noise. "He's an old man. It was a common nickname for Michael back when he was a kid."

"Is he senile?"

"Very sharp, I promise. His record is impeccable, but he gives off this grandfatherly vibe that lulls everyone into a false sense of security. He sympathizes with you, Jack. He says that between all of his grandchildren and nieces and nephews there's not one mistake that nobody's made."

Blair carefully made a left turn. Two more turns and they would be at the police station. Jack was glad that there wasn't much in his stomach to lose because he was pretty sure the nausea was going to overwhelm him. He was debating asking Blair to pull over and let him be sick when the car stopped unexpectedly.

For a second, Jack felt a flash of relief, like his mother really could read his mind after all and knew he needed, at least, some fresh air. Then Blair swore and jerked the car onto the shoulder. Jack saw that they had just avoided being caught in an unmoving traffic jam.

"Is something going on tonight?" she asked.

"Nothing I know about."

"Nothing I know about, either, and we're usually pretty on top of things for Capricorn."

Jack shrugged and leaned his aching head back against the seat.

"Hey." Blair brushed her fingers against Jack's arm. "We're not going to let a little thing like this stop us. We're going to walk through the alley and be at the police station faster than if we'd driven. I'll be right beside you the whole time."

Jack couldn't make any sound come out of his throat in reply, but he did manage to pry himself out of the car.

The sun was falling fast and the night was going to be cold. Instinctively, Jack found himself walking more quickly than he meant to. Blair was right beside him until, with a sickening thud, she wasn't.

_Wheezy_.

Shane Morasco's face, contorted with anger and righteous indignation, rose before Jack's mind's eye. He was the one who had hit Jack the night of Victor's murder; Jack remembered that now, sensing Shane for a split second as he fumbled for his keys.

Shane must be the one who was here, trying to take Jack's mother because Jack had taken his. He had hit Blair from behind just as he had hit Jack.

"Mom!"

Jack wrenched himself away from whatever was holding him- something had been holding him?- and lashed out blindly toward whoever had hit his mother. He landed one punch against someone too big and solid to be Wheezy. Then he saw a shoe, a woman's shoe with a high heel, aiming for Blair's head. He tossed himself to the ground and took the blow with his shoulder.

There was a pinching at the back of his neck, and his body froze.

Someone jerked him roughly to his feet and turned his head so he was looking at the owner of the shoe.

"You shouldn't have done that, my darling grandson," said Irene. She nodded to Jack's captor, who picked Jack up around his waist and tossed him into the trunk of a waiting car.

Just before the trunk slammed shut, Jack saw Irene direct another pointy-toed kick at Blair's face. "I never liked you at all," she said.

* * *

Todd smoothed down the rumpled quilt on the bed where Blair and Jack had been sitting. It was still warm from their bodies and he let his hand linger.

"Maybe we should meet them at the police station," he suggested to Starr.

"And tell them we listened to that whole conversation?" Starr wiped a stray tear off her still-flushed cheek. "Jack will be so pissed he won't confess to anything. He'll say we're all out to get him anyway and he has to protect himself."

"We'll just say it was a coincidence."

"They're both going to buy that?" She plucked Blair's brush from her dresser and ran it through her hair.

"I don't want Jack walking in there alone."

Starr turned and glared at Todd. "He's not alone. He's never been alone. Or did you believe that whole story about how I stole Mom from him and ruined our family by getting pregnant after ruining it by telling everyone Victor was you?"

"No one's saying anything is your fault, Shorty."

"Were you not eavesdropping on the same conversation I was eavesdropping on? What did you think he said?"

"I think he said Victor Lord Junior was an asshole who cut down my wife and my children until they felt worthless and convinced them that I don't love them." He crossed the room in a single stride and grabbed Starr by the shoulders. "I love you, Starr."

Starr stood on her toes to hug him. "Love you, too."

"So let's watch that movie you promised me," he said, but what he meant was _How long will it be before I can get your mother or brother to say that?_

* * *

In the dark, bumpy trunk, Jack found that he could move his fingers again. He used them to probe the spot at the back of his neck where he'd felt the pinch and found a hot, swollen bump. One of Irene's thugs must have injected him with something.

A vague lesson in the distant past about smashing the brake lights from the inside of the trunk floated to the forefront of his mind.

He groped in the general direction of the brake light. It hurt.

"Mom," he whispered.

He had to get back to Blair. He didn't think they'd killed her- he couldn't think they'd killed her- but he couldn't let her lie in the alley with a head injury. She needed to go to the hospital.

He tried again, this time managing to get his hand around the panel covering the light. It snapped off, pinching his finger in the process. He didn't care; there were wires behind the panel, wires he could rip out.

There was no way his mother was going to die because of him the way Gigi had.

Just as he had the wires out of the way, the trunk flew open.

Irene glared down at him.

"Resourceful, like my Victor, are you? Too late, though."

Jack blinked and saw that they were inside a loading dock.

He gathered his muscles, well trained by hour after hour of soccer, and sprang out of the trunk.

"There's nowhere to go, Jack," Irene crooned.

She was right, Jack realized. There was only one door; when he flung himself at it, he found it locked.

"Sneaking around isn't as easy as you thought it was, is it?" asked Irene. "You thought you got away with something last night. You thought I wouldn't find out."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I had dozens of surveillance cameras installed in my new home. I know that you stopped by last night, and you didn't even say hello to your grandmother." Irene pouted.

Jack shivered. He'd almost forgotten about that. His mind was too full of Gigi and Shane and Victor-dad and Scarface-dad and... "What did you do to my mom?"

"She'll come around. Probably." Irene chuckled. "It doesn't serve my purposes to kill her just yet. More's the pity."

"And me?"

"And you could have been my ally." Irene backed Jack against the door; her flowery perfume made him want to gag. "But now you're a liability."

"I didn't hear anything."

Irene slapped Jack across the face. "Prove it."

"How can I prove-"

She slapped him again. "Tell me what you know."

"I don't know anything!"

"Did you tell Todd?"

"I didn't- I don't even know where he is! I can't stand the guy, I thought you knew that!"

"I thought I did, too, but maybe you decided you would pretend to hate him and fool your silly old grandmother."

"I didn't!"

"But to protect myself, I have to assume that you would tell him everything you know."

"I don't know anything!" The more Jack said it, the more he realized it was true. He didn't know anything about his family or his friends or his school. He was the stupidest person who had ever walked the face of the planet, as Victor-dad had sometimes told him.

Irene snapped her fingers. "Jog his memory," she directed a pair of men. They seized Jack's arms and dragged him through the door, which Irene had unlocked by entering a code on a well-concealed keypad.

On the other side of the door was a warehouse four stories high. Rickety metal stairs ran along the walls; pallets of plastic-wrapped supplies stood ready for delivery. One of the men pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and roughly jerked Jack's hands into them.

Then he unbuckled his belt.

Jack's stomach lurched. The thought of rape had always wrapped itself silently around his family. Blair was the product of a rape. Sam was the product of a rape. Todd had raped Marty, and the rapist's daughter had fallen in love with the rape victim's son. That was without getting into the mess that was their extended family- Viki and Niki and Jess and Tess and the rest.

But he'd never pictured himself as a potential victim until that moment.

When the belt flew across his back, he shouted more from surprise than from pain. A beating was a lesser evil than the one he'd been imagining.

He braced himself against the second lash; that seemed to make it hurt more.

He tried to relax into the third lash, reminding himself that he deserved it for getting Gigi killed and Blair hit over the head.

On the fourth lash he thought about how nice it would be to die and not face McPain at the police station. At least Irene had kidnapped him before his confession and not after.

On the fifth lash he screamed and fell to his knees.

"What did you hear?" Irene demanded.

"Nothing." He couldn't remember anything. He remembered slinking into Sam's room. He remembered two women's voices. He remembered-

"Hit him again."

The pain made him forget.

"I'm your grandson!" He protested, not realizing how ridiculous that was until he heard himself say it. She hadn't cared that Biological-dad was her son. She'd done worse than this to him for eight years.

"And I hate to have to do this to you. You should have been honest with me. Todd should have been honest with me. Victor should have been honest with me. Your grandfather started this, you know, when he gave that ring to your father. Your father brought him your cousin Natalie so he could cut her heart out."

"Whatever."

"Whatever will mess with what little brain Todd has left the most, yes. Whatever will bring out the strongest sense of irony and fear and guilt."

Irene produced a knife from her bag and tapped Jack on the chest.

"Let's see if you have the heart of a Lord, shall we?"


	9. Chapter 9

Rage and humiliation gave Jack a new wave of strength he hadn't expected.

He didn't even know his biological father; where did Irene get off on cutting out his heart as some kind of taunt to the man?

When Irene's goons reached lazily around him to unchain his handcuffs from the rickety metal stairs, he was ready. His right fist found the shorter man's nose, which broke with a satisfying squelch and a stream of profanity.

The taller man- who was really very tall, with half a head on Jack- recovered too quickly for Jack to do anything but direct a half-assed sucker punch at his groin before a double fisted blow on his sore back knocked him back to his knees.

Splashes of blood sank into Jack's shirt as Nose took his left arm and Tall his right. Their intention, Jack could tell, was to drag him to the other side of the warehouse. He couldn't stop them; the rational part of his mind admitted that.

But he could make getting him there a pain in the ass.

He was _great_ at being a pain in the ass.

At the last second, Jack managed to hook his leg around the metal support of the stairs.

Nose and Tall tugged; Jack hung on. He couldn't feel the strain on his muscles through the rush of anger and adrenaline.

"Just shoot the fucker!" Nose suggested through a stream of snotty blood.

"Don't talk about my grandson that way," said Irene coolly. "He needs to be alive and conscious when we start the procedure."

"Why?"

Irene gave Nose a hard tap on his mangled face. Nose howled; Jack laughed. "You aren't paid to ask why."

"I apologize, Ms. Manning."

Muttering something about good help being hard to find, Irene slammed her gun down on Jack's leg. He didn't let go. She set about the slow work of prying him loose with her hands.

"I can't believe you two need granny to help you get a kid across a room," Jack told Nose and Tall.

Nose took a swing at Jack and lost his balance. Before he recovered, Jack pried his arm free and took another swing at Tall.

"You're a lot like your father," Tall grunted. "But he didn't win and neither can you."

At that second, Jack didn't care.

* * *

Todd paced the length of the room, drink in hand. "We should have heard something by now."

Privately, Starr thought the same thing, but there was no way she was going to tell her father that. He didn't need the encouragement. "Mom doesn't know we know where they went. She doesn't want to call until she's sure she has something to say."

Todd made a face at Starr. "You can't lie to me, Shorty. You never could."

"What about the time I told you an ugly man with a big stick tried to kidnap me, and you bought a new security system and called the police?"

"Don't change the subject."

"Mom will call soon." As if on cue, Starr's phone rang. She grinned victoriously and held the phone up so Todd could see that the caller ID showed a photograph of a beaming Blair. "Mom?" she asked eagerly.

"Starr?" asked a familiar, rough voice.

"Yes," Starr confirmed before realizing that she shouldn't have. Her heart leapt into her throat and a thousand scenarios, each one worse than the last, rushed through her mind. Blair hadn't voluntarily handed her phone to a police officer so he could trick her fugitive daughter into picking up. "I mean, who wants to know?"

Todd bolted to her side in one swift movement and leaned his head close to hers. Starr fumbled numbly for the speakerphone.

"Starr, this isn't about your little jailbreak escapade," John was saying. "Don't worry about that now. Personally, I think any guard who let you get the drop on him like that kind of deserves the humiliation."

"What happened?" Starr demanded over a flurry of half-muffled curses from Todd. "What happened to Mom? Why isn't she calling me herself?"

"Your mother was found unconscious in the alley behind the station."

"What about Jack?" Todd demanded.

"My brother," Starr told the phone. "My brother, Jack, was with her. They left an hour ago to go see you."

"There was no sign of anyone else. Starr, your mother was just taken to the emergency room—"

"She'll be right there," said Todd, and ended the call. He reached for his coat and Starr's. "You go straight to the hospital. If she has any idea about where Jack might be, you let me know."

"Where are you going?"

"To find that sociopath Irene and get Jack away from her before she straps him into a chair and gives him electroshock therapy," said Todd darkly. "Irene's the one who did this. She has to be." He grabbed Starr and kissed the top of her head. "Take care of your mother."

Todd was halfway out the door, but Starr seized his arm and held on tightly. "I always take care of Mom. We've taken care of each other for eight years. We did not get you back just to have someone mess it up now. So you have to take care of you."

"I'll take care of Jack."

"And yourself," said Starr firmly. She had an overwhelming desire to kick Todd in the shins. "Do not do anything stupid."

"Starr, I'm not sure I'm capable of—"

"Make yourself capable. Or I'll just have to go with you instead of to the hospital."

"I won't do anything you wouldn't do."

Starr decided that that was as good as she was likely to get. She let go of Todd; the imprint of her grip remained on his jacket.

"Come back to Mom and me," she yelled as they took off in separate directions.

"You were a cat for Halloween once when I was gone," he yelled back, and she didn't bother to decode what that was supposed to mean.

Starr's phone rang all the way to the hospital. Eventually, she answered; John had to know where she was going, and he had sounded amenable to not arresting her on sight.

"They've moved your mother to the fifth floor," John rumbled into her ear. "I'll meet you there, and we can discuss what she and Jack were really doing."

Starr burst into the hospital and opted for the stairs rather than the elevator. There was less chance of meeting a cop less agreeable than John that way.

"I told you the truth!" she snapped. "They were going to see you. They were going to tell you that Jack didn't see Dad at Tea's house when Victor died. They were going to talk to you about Gigi Morasco, too."

"Everyone says you used to be into tall tales when you were a kid."

"But not now."

"So why did your brother have this sudden change of heart? Something to do with Irene?"

"I don't think so." As she ran up the last few flights of stairs, she tried to remember if Jack and Blair had said anything about Irene. She even considered calling Todd to ask him what he thought. She decided against it. Todd needed to concentrate on finding Jack.

* * *

Todd was heading for the docks before he consciously knew why. In addition to being a time-honored location for all sorts of bad behavior, this was where Louie had fished him out of the water after Irene had had him shot. This was the place he and Irene had in common, and he had no doubt that she wanted him to find her. She had told him, after all, that his family was alive because she needed to control him.

Darkness had fallen completely when he reached the Llantano River. That made his job easier. Too much light or too little light inside a building wouldn't suit Irene's purposes.

His eyes scanned the warehouses. Most were clearly the property of legitimate businesses. A few were too dilapidated to allow Irene to stack the odds in her favor.

One stood out as just right. Todd should have thought of it from the beginning.

It had once been the property of Victor Lord.

Viki had still owned it when he'd first met her.

Todd made a beeline for a low window and smashed it with his jacket-wrapped fist. As he had expected, there was no alarm. Someone did not want to draw police attention to this place.

After crawling inside, Todd found himself in a small office area separated from the main warehouse by a thin wall. Without even trying, he could hear shouting and a voice he would know anywhere. Fear shot through every inch of his body, quickly followed by rage.

_Not Jack. Not my Jack._

The door was locked, but thin. A well placed kick beside the knob shook it open.

Movement caught Todd's eye and he ran toward it. A shot rang out; it missed him and lodged itself in the wall.

Todd threw three bodies out of his way without looking at them. The last he registered as Irene only because of her noxious, flowery perfume.

Jack had been tied to a slab reminiscent of an operating table. Todd caught the reference right away. _Victor. The ring. Natalie._

As Todd began to disentangle Jack, one of the thugs came toward him. The thug's face had been smashed to a bruised, bloody mess; Todd completed the job by hitting him, hard, from behind. The thug slumped into unconsciousness.

"Step away from the boy."

A shiver ran down Todd's spine, not from danger, but from memory.

_Baker_.

Todd pulled the last rope holding Jack loose, but tapped Jack lightly with one finger to signal him to stay still. Then he raised his hands in the air and turned to face Baker.

"You break the other one's nose, Jack?" Todd asked casually.

"Yeah."

"Good job."

"Thanks."

Jack's voice was casual and strong. Todd couldn't wipe the smile from his face. He loved this kid with all his fight and troublemaking and faux-bravado. Even with their lives in danger, it was damn nice to be on the same side for once.

In the background, Irene slowly got to her feet. "About time you got up," Todd told her. "I didn't knock _you_ out."

"Things get harder when you get older. Something my grandson will never get the chance to learn thanks to you."

"I thought you liked Jack. I thought you were the one for him." Todd squeezed Jack's finger ever so slightly, and knew instinctively that Jack had understood. They had the odds down to two on two. Even without guns- damn it, Starr!- this was the best chance they would have for a while.

"I thought I liked Jack, too, but things change."

"Things change," Todd repeated, and with that he charged Baker and knocked him to the floor. Baker's gun slid under a shrink-wrapped pallet of who-cared-what. Todd punched every inch of Baker that he could find, barely feeling the punches he received in return.

Baker was more of a fighter than the broken-faced man had been, and they wrestled on the ground until something heavy came down on Baker's head.

Like a dream (a good dream rather than the sort Todd usually had), Jack extended his hand to help Todd to his feet.

They headed for the door, but Irene had recovered quickly from the fall Jack had given her. She placed herself in the door, gun aimed menacingly at Todd and Jack.

"Up," Todd and Jack decided together.

"I'll be here when you realize there's no way out," Irene called after them. A bullet or two ricocheted off the metal staircase.

Slowly, Baker arose and lumbered after Todd and Jack.

They ran as hard as they could until they reached the roof, four stories above the Llantano River.

They looked into the dark water, then at each other. For all his earlier cool, Jack was plainly terrified, not wanting Todd to say aloud what he already knew.

"We're going to have to jump."


	10. Chapter 10

When Starr peeked out of the stairwell, the first thing she saw was John McBain standing at attention outside a closed door. She wouldn't need to sneak around to figure out where she was going, at least.

"How is she?" Starr demanded without preamble.

John didn't show any sign of being startled by Starr's sudden appearance. How annoying.

"She'll be fine. She woke up before they even got her here. Goose egg on her head and maybe a mild concussion, but she didn't see what happened."

Starr nodded and tried to slide under John's arm into the room. John lowered his arm to bar her. "What do you know, Starr?" he growled.

"Lots of things," she muttered, making another try at the doorknob.

"Why'd you break your father out of prison?"

"Because Irene was going to kill my family!" she said, more shrilly than she'd meant to. "We couldn't prove it, so we couldn't tell the police. We shouldn't have let Mom and Jack go out to find you without us."

"You were going to protect them?"

Starr shrugged. At least she could have tried. At least they would have been together.

John seemed to take that as an acceptable answer and nodded that Starr was free to go.

* * *

Starr, all warmth and glitter and girlish cotton-candy scent, had Blair in a hug like a vise. Blair hugged back, glad for the easy display of affection despite the circumstances. Ten years earlier, if someone had told her that Starr would be her easy child, she would have accused that person of self-medicating. Ten years earlier, she hadn't known jack.

"Where's your father?" she breathed into Starr's ear.

"Looking for Jack," Starr murmured. "He promised he'd find him."

Blair knew all about what Todd's promises were worth, but she also knew that this was one he'd try to keep.

Starr's fingers traipsed through Blair's hair and found the knot on the back of her head. She winced with sympathy.

"Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine." Blair didn't bother to mention that the doctor had ordered that she be kept overnight just in case. She had no intention of following that little suggestion, not while Jack was out there somewhere.

"No nausea?" Starr prompted. "Not seeing stars?" She smiled sheepishly and gestured at herself. "Other than the obvious."

"Just the one," Blair agreed.

"Recite the months backward, starting with December." It was a demand, not a request. Blair couldn't help laughing.

"I didn't realize you'd gone to medical school during your time as a fugitive. Dorian will be happy."

"The one thing she and Dad agree on," said Starr wryly. "He thinks I should stop singing and be a doctor."

"He said that?" If Todd was already trying to control their children's lives, well, that would have to be dealt with just as soon as they found out where Jack was. Blair only bothered with being rich and powerful and welcomed in polite society so her children would really, truly be free to follow any path they chose.

"He didn't say it, but I could tell. Anyway, the months. Starting with December. Please?"

"Don't be ridiculous." _December, November, October, August, no, September..._

"You don't think you can! Where's your doctor? I need to talk to him."

"I am the parent and you are the child and you are not calling the doctor."

Starr smiled sweetly. "Then since you brought her up, I guess I could call Aunt Dorian instead. I know she'd want to know you're in the hospital."

Blair groaned. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because you're just like Dad. The only reason you haven't gone after Jack yet is that you don't know where to go. As soon as you have an idea, you're out of here and I don't want you to pass out or something with no one there to help you, so I need to know how bad off you are. I know Jack thinks he's the one who always gets whatever's left over with you and Dad, but if you both- over this thing with Gigi- Dad wouldn't even have been locked up if Jack hadn't lied about that too- I love you as much as Jack does and I need you as much as he does and... "

Blair pulled Starr into another hug. "December," she crooned softly as a lullaby. "November. October. September. August. July. June. May. April. March. February. January."

"Thanks."

"I'm not going to lie and tell you there isn't any danger, but you know your father is good at this kind of thing. He's got more than nine lives."

"I tried to make him promise to take care of himself. He wouldn't. But I told him that you and I have been taking care of each other for eight years. I couldn't let you get hurt, too."

"When we hear something, you can come with me. All right?" Blair didn't really want Starr tagging along, but it appeared to be her only choice. Starr wasn't any more likely to go to Llanfair to wait with Hope and Sam than Blair was.

"Deal."

When John returned to report that there was a disturbance near the river in the warehouse district that matched the facts they were looking for, Blair and Starr thanked him politely. Then they waited for him to leave before rolling their eyes and hustling Blair into street clothes.

* * *

Jack nodded because he couldn't find his voice. Throwing himself off a roof had never been high on the list of things he wanted to do some day, but it was preferable to whatever Irene had planned.

_"Don't you care that Shane tried to throw himself off a roof?"_

Jack shoved the memory of accusing voices out of his mind. He and Shane were nothing alike. Shane had tried to choose death over humiliation, which was just pathetic. Jack was choosing a quick death over a painful death, which was sensible.

"You're going to feel disoriented for a second, but that's going to pass. When you touch the bottom of the river, just push off and swim away from it. That's up, OK?"

Jack tried to focus on what Todd was saying.

"OK?" Todd repeated more urgently. "You hit the bottom, and swimming away from that is swimming up even if it doesn't feel like it. You'll have enough air to last you. It'll feel longer than it is. Toes stretched, arms at your sides so you don't give the water more resistance than you have to. It's gonna sting, but not like a bullet."

The advice was so unexpectedly practical that Jack stopped worrying, just for a second, about his imminent demise. "How do you know?"

"It's not my first time." Todd flashed Jack a warm smile. "I'll tell you all about it when we're dried off. On three. One, two-"

Jack jumped on two. As long as he was going to do this anyway, he was tired of waiting.

The second and a half he spent in midair were the longest of Jack's life. Just before he hit the water, he realized that he was enjoying himself. He could fly.

Then there was pitch black murky poisonous water covering his nose and mouth and his lungs started to burn. The water was tugging at him from every direction, but, mostly, it was pushing him down into the mud.

_"You gonna let Wheezy get one up on you?"_

"Are you that stupid, Jack? I'm gonna tie a cowbell to your ass."

"Don't you ever say that again!"

"Don't you talk to me like that!"

"This is why no one likes you."

_"Why can't you be more like Starr?"_

"Your sister is right."

"Poor Starr, having to put up with that."

"Poor Sam, Jack gives him such a hard time."

"Shut up, Jack!"

_"No wonder Starr tried to leave him in the park when he was a baby."_

"No wonder his father gave him away."

"You thought you got away with something."

"Do you even care that you killed Gigi?"

"Coward!"

_"Don't you care that Shane tried to throw himself off a roof?"_

"Let's see if you have the heart of a Lord."

"You little sociopath."

"Jack doesn't deserve to live."

"If I'd known it was you, I would never hurt you. I'm your father."

"And you? You will believe me. You will, sooner or later."  
_  
"You hit the bottom, and swimming away from that is swimming up even if it doesn't feel like it. You'll have enough air to last you."_

Jack's hands and feet found the silty bottom of the river. The other direction was up, where there was air.

His lungs burned.

_Take a breath. It'll all be over. No more Shane, no more Gigi, no more McPain, no more Irene._

He swam away from the riverbed. Even without opening his eyes, he could feel everything getting brighter.

His head broke the surface and he gasped for breath.

_You killed them. Shane and Gigi and if Todd is dead, you killed him, too, because he came after you._

Another breath and he was ready to scream. **_"DAD?!"_**

* * *

Everything was sparkling- winter stars hanging low in the sky, streetlamps bouncing off the river, freezing wet droplets on Todd's eyelashes. He treaded water and tried to make out ripples that might tell him where Jack had dropped into the water.

Jack had looked all right going in. Todd had been able to see that before hitting the water himself because Jack had jumped on two instead of three- kid after Todd's own heart. Todd was just about to dive back under when Jack yelled.

All of a sudden, Todd was glad for the sparkling darkness. It hid the silly grin on his face and the tears in his eyes that would undoubtedly convince Jack to wait another year before he said it again.

"Right here!" He swam a few lengths to where Jack was breathing heavily. "You good to swim downstream for a while before we get out?"

"Yeah."

With every stroke that Todd swam with Jack beside him, he got a mouthful of water because he couldn't stop laughing. The water felt good, and being alive felt good, and being with his son felt good.

Knowing how grateful Blair would be when she saw that he'd brought back their little pain in the ass felt good, too. He damn well deserved a kiss for this. With lots of tongue. And groping.

The cold water didn't do much to stifle his body's reaction to the thought.

Then he remembered that Blair had been knocked unconscious. With new resolve, he swam a little faster. Jack kept pace; the current was doing half the work for both of them.

The river darkened as they drifted by the most decrepit of the warehouses and then brightened as they reached the bright lights of expensive waterfront hotels and offices. Todd was about to gesture to Jack that they should start moving toward the shore when a flashlight began to play across the river from the terrace of the Palace Hotel.

"Manning!" a voice warned through a bullhorn.

"McPain," said Jack with breathless distaste.  
_  
"Jack! Todd!"_

Blair didn't have a bullhorn. She didn't need one.

Jack and Todd shared a moment of relief before fighting through the current toward the shore. The closer they got, the better they were able to hear Blair and Starr. It was more motivation than they could have asked for.

Just as Todd's hand grazed the edge of the dock, there was a splash and a shriek beside him. Starr had jumped into the water. "You made it!" she squealed as she threw her arms around his neck.

Blair followed Starr into the water. She had Jack's face in her hands; the two of them spent a long moment assuring each other that they had survived Irene's evening's entertainment.

Then Starr gave her brother a nudge on the shoulder, and Blair pushed Todd's wet hair out of his face.

He was struggling to catch his breath already; having Blair an inch away wasn't helping.

"Thank you, Todd."

Their eyes locked.

Todd was perfectly willing to stand there forever in the freezing, dirty water with his stomach cramping and his lungs failing if he could keep staring at Blair.

Unfortunately, John McBain had other ideas.

"That's nice. Now get out of the water. Most of you are under arrest."


	11. Chapter 11

Todd was still panting with exertion; he could barely feel the water around him. He didn't like the way Starr and Blair were shivering, though, so he didn't waste any time in following McBain's command that they get out of the river.

Todd and Jack shook themselves off like dogs while Blair and Starr shakily tried to wring the water out of their clothes and hair.

McBain impatiently tossed his cuffs in the air and caught them half a dozen times.

Todd rolled his eyes and held out his hands. The faster everyone got warm and dry, the better. At the last second, he remembered the big picture and snatched his arms away. "What about Irene? Did you get her?"

"Not yet," McBain admitted. "Just missed her in that warehouse."

"If you catch her, are you going to put her in a holding cell with Starr?" He was intimately familiar with the Llanview PD's holding cells. The usual procedure was to put all the men in one and all the women in another regardless of what harm those men and woman might have caused each other to get locked up in the first place. He imagined watching Irene attack Starr and being unable to do anything about it from the men's cell across the hall.

"I think we can manage not to do that," said McBain.

Todd paused. McBain had been pretty consistently decent to him these past few months, but a cop was a cop.

"John would never put Starr in that kind of danger," Blair said.

"No, he wouldn't," Starr agreed with a sneeze.

Todd nodded and held out his hands again.

"Todd Manning, you are under arrest for jailbreak, assaulting and threatening an officer, and the murder of Victor Lord Junior."

"Wait!" Jack interrupted. "He didn't murder Victor. I know I said he was the one who hit me, but he wasn't. It was Shane Morasco."

"Shane?" It was almost comical how Blair, Starr, and McBain all turned to stare at Jack in unison.

"Haven't you done enough to that kid?" McBain demanded. "Your father pulled your ass out of that warehouse, so you're going to lie about Shane Morasco instead?"

"Yes. I mean, no," Jack stammered. "Yes, I did enough to him. I killed Gigi Morasco. But I did see him at—"

"You killed Gigi?" asked McBain coolly.

"Not on purpose. I didn't know that the generator was there. I didn't—"

"Stop talking until your attorney gets here," Todd ordered.

To Todd's surprise, Jack closed his mouth and hung his head.

"Jack Manning, you are under arrest for lying in a police investigation and for false imprisonment of Gigi Morasco." McBain cuffed Jack, too. "Starr, I don't have another pair of handcuffs, but you're under arrest as an accessory to jailbreak and for assaulting and threatening an officer."

"OK," Starr agreed cheerily.

"And Blair." McBain looked at Blair a moment too long for Todd's taste. Todd didn't like the affection that seemed to underlie McBain's exasperation, either. "I don't have any evidence that you've harbored a fugitive during the past two days, and I don't really want to arrest you when I know you belong in the hospital. But do you think you can stay out of trouble until business hours tomorrow morning?"

"I'll certainly try, Detective McBain," said Blair, and Todd definitely was not on board with the playful southern belle flirting. He was a fan of it when it was directed at him. There was no need to direct it at McBain, though. Wasn't McBain supposed to be pining after Natalie while Natalie chased after Jessica's fiancée, who happened to be McBain's subordinate? That was enough to keep anyone busy.

"See that you do."

"Whatever security you got for Sam and Hope, get it for yourself," Todd put in a little too loudly. Protecting Blair wasn't McBain's job. "Irene's out there and she hates you."

"So I noticed." Blair smoothed Todd's wet hair back from his face one more time and he couldn't help closing his eyes and leaning into her touch. He had missed it too much for too long.

"You two!" Blair addressed Starr and Jack. "Be good for your father in jail tonight. Your attorney and I will be there in the morning."

"Are you going to check on Hope?" Starr asked anxiously. "Tell her I love her and I'll be back soon."

"Of course. She's fine," Blair said reassuringly. "Jack?" Jack didn't respond. "See you in the morning."

"We're a lot safer than you are," Todd told Blair. "Maybe you should go back to the hospital. Or get yourself arrested."

"Who would handle bailing everyone out if I did that?"

"Viki would," said Todd sternly. "I haven't been back long enough to piss her off, and she doesn't want to have to keep the kids forever."

"Go back to the hospital," McBain put in, and Todd scowled. He hadn't wanted McBain's help in this.

"You'll forgive me if I don't think of the hospital as a safe haven," said Blair dryly.

McBain, Jack, and Starr all reacted visibly; Todd had no idea why. He was tired of everyone else knowing more about his family than he did. Maybe he could bribe his children into spending their night in jail telling him all about it.

"Go home and take care of yourself, then," McBain instructed, and after that he had no patience for more goodbyes.

The next twenty minutes were all Miranda rights (like anyone who had ever seen a cop show didn't know them anyway) and being booked for the millionth time in his life. Starr, of course, came through like a trooper; Jack was a little too quiet.

Todd demanded his phone call.

"You can't make bail tonight. You already know your lawyer will be here tomorrow. What do you need a phone call for?"

"I don't think I have to justify that to you." McBain waved at one of the underlings and Todd was escorted to the phone.

He heaved a sigh of relief when Viki answered.

"Sis? Are Sam and Hope still there? Is Sam awake? I need a favor, but it's an unselfish favor, which makes it not really a favor at all…"

***

Blair had barely made it back to the car she and Jack had abandoned near the police station that afternoon when her phone let loose the hysterical buzz it only gave when her children called.

John had made it clear that she couldn't do anything else for Starr or Jack tonight; the caller must be Sam.

She sighed and slumped into her seat. She would never have considered not taking the call, but she did permit herself a second to wish Sam's timing had been better.

"Hi, Sam."

"Mom!" Sam's usual exuberance filled the car. Blair pulled the phone an inch away from her ear. "Are you on your way home?"

"Almost. But you and Hope need to stay with your Aunt Viki tonight, all right?"

"Me and Bree are making hammocks and we're going to pretend we're camping out in a treehouse. But can you come over and say goodnight? Please? I miss you and it's weird being somewhere else. It's like when Michael and Marcie used to call me Tommy and we lived all over the place."

"You don't remember that." She was sure he didn't remember that. She'd told him about Michael and Marcie so he wouldn't get blindsided by elementary school gossip the way Starr and Jack had at his age, but he'd only been two years old when she'd become his mother.

"Please come and say goodnight?"

"I'll be there soon." Sam couldn't have picked better words to get her to come. She was tempted to bring Sam and Hope home anyway, but her head throbbed with the painful reminder that they were better cared for where they were. Just for tonight. Tomorrow, everyone would be free and they would all be together.

She decided not to contemplate whether "everyone" included Todd.

Blair didn't even reach the front door of Llanfair before she heard Sam's voice. But once she and Sam were face to face, Sam went rigid and stared at her.

"Sam?"  
_  
"YOU LOOK AWFUL!" _Sam yelled at the top of his voice. Blair winced, not just at the noise but at the promise of being confronted with Viki and Natalie and Jessica and Clint and, worst of all, Tina.

As luck would have it, it was Tina who materialized first. It was probably the first time in her life Tina had responded to a child's shout, and that included the shouts of her own two children.

Tina took in the bruises on Blair's face, the damp and wrinkled clothing, and the rat's nest that her hair had become when she'd jumped in the river.

"Your mom doesn't look any different than usual to me, Sam."  
_  
"SHE SHOULD BE IN THE HOSPITAL!" _Sam continued with a melodramatic flair Blair hadn't seen since Starr had been seven.

"Tina, what's going on out there? Who should be in the hospital?"

Blair froze. It should have occurred to her, of course; if Tina was somewhere, Cord couldn't be far away. It was some kind of rule of nature.

On the one hand, at least she actually _liked_ Cord.

On the other hand, even though their romance had been over for twenty years, she still would have redone her makeup if she'd expected to come face to face with him. Old boyfriends came with certain rules, especially when they were attached to women she hated.

_"Blair."_

"I would hug you, but I took an unplanned dip in the Llantano river today and you'd have to throw out your clothes and get a shot."

"A good idea if you touch Blair anyway," muttered Tina.

Cord threw a long suffering look over his shoulder at Tina. Through all of her pain and exhaustion, Blair managed to enjoy it.

"I'll risk it," Cord told Blair, and he wrapped her into a hug. As they pulled apart, he took a hard look at Blair's face. "What happened there?"

Blair glanced in the mirror. A bruise was blooming on her cheek. "Tina's mother knocked me out and kicked me in the face before she threw my son in the trunk of her car and threatened to cut out his heart."

It had the intended effect of shutting Tina the hell up.

It had the unintended effect of Sam squeaking "Is she really going to cut Jack's heart out?"

_Shit_. Blair had completely forgotten that Sam was there. Maybe Jack had had more of a point than she'd wanted to admit when he'd said that three children (plus granddaughter and pseudo-stepdaughter) were too many for her.

She dropped to the floor so she could look Sam in the eye. "She's not going to hurt anyone. Your Uncle Todd got Jack out of there and they're both someplace safe with Starr."

"Where?"

Blair decided that Sam was going to find out soon enough anyway. "Jail."

_"Again?"_

"Just for tonight. And you and Hope and everyone else here is safe with Shaun looking out for you."

"What about you?"

"I'm going back home to get everything ready for when you all come home tomorrow."

_"No,"_ said Sam firmly.

"You can't go home alone with a head injury while Irene's out there. You just can't," Cord whispered in her ear.

She twisted to look at him. Twisting hurt. She'd been running on adrenaline alone for a long time and even that was starting to drain away. "What do you suggest?"

"I suggest that Todd's not using his room tonight, so you might as well. I don't see either Todd or Viki having a problem with it."

He didn't seem to care whether _Blair_ had a problem with it. It didn't matter, though; she couldn't have Sam waking up scared in the middle of the night without the only parent he had left. She'd just get out of the house early in the morning before she had to do something truly awful like face the assembled Lord-Buchanans over breakfast.

The next hour ranged from awkward (explaining Irene's fixation on the heart of a Lord nonsense to Viki, Natalie, Jessica, and Tina was something Blair could have done without) to unexpectedly pleasant (Bree and Sam had shown real ingenuity in creating their "treehouse" in Bree's bedroom).

At last, she was blissfully allowed a hot shower along with a few private tears because Starr and Jack were spending the night in the police station's basement instead of getting ready to sleep in the lap of luxury like she was.

The clothes she'd been wearing all day went directly into the garbage. She didn't want to see them again even if they were salvageable.

That left her in the undeniable position of being naked. She allowed herself a moment to fantasize about wandering through Llanfair in her current state. Tina would break her neck trying to cover Cord's eyes, Clint would probably have another heart attack, and Viki would undoubtedly splinter into her thousand alters. In the long run, it probably wasn't worth it.

Instead, Blair opened Todd's dresser and helped herself to one of his t-shirts.

A second later she was gripping the drawer to keep her balance and telling herself that it was the head injury that was making her dizzy.

It was not the intimacy of clothes that were supposed to be caressing Todd's naked skin caressing her naked skin instead.

She was over Todd. She'd been over Todd for years. It didn't matter that she'd thought Victor was Todd at the time; it had still been her love for Todd that she'd put behind her.

She caught a glimpse of her own wet hair and remembered how Todd had looked in the river with heat radiating off his almost incomprehensibly strong body despite the autumn chill. She remembered his wet hair begging to be touched. He'd looked at her like he might devour her if given half a chance, but also like just being near her was a thing to be treasured.

_It was the situation,_ she told herself. _He'd just saved our son's life when no one else could have. Anyone would imagine what it would be like to pin him down on the dock and see how much stamina he had left after that swim._

She decided not to borrow a pair of his boxers. There were limits.

Someone knocked on the door.

Then again, Todd owed her this after all the times he'd appeared in her bedroom without permission over the years. Clothes were just clothes. She pulled the boxers on and steadfastly did not think about what else had touched them.

The door opened enough for Blair to see Cord's shadow.

"Blair? Are you decent?"

"Depends who you ask."

"Very funny." Cord deposited a tray of sandwiches, fruit, and potato chips on the table. "When's the last time you ate?"

Blair rolled her eyes. She and Cord hadn't seen each other in years, but he had had no problem appointing himself her caretaker. Now he was deftly striding the line between "sweet" and "mind your own business."

"I was a good girl. I ate all my salad at lunch," she told him.

"So you can keep it up and eat your dinner before you go to bed." He nudged her in the direction of the bed and put a sandwich in her hand.

"I don't think Viki is in favor of people eating in her guest bedrooms."

"Viki's idea," Cord trumped her. "Right after Natalie called John to get an update on Irene and he told her that you skipped out of the hospital where you were supposed to be staying overnight. He's glad you had the brains not to go home alone. His words, not mine."

Blair bit into the sandwich. The room spun again and she realized that she was ravenous. "I need to stop dating good men who go around worrying about me 20 years later."

Cord appeared to accept that as a thank you. "Well, you can start dating terrible men exclusively tomorrow."

Blair shook her head through a mouthful of fruit. "Can't do that anymore, either. My children are traumatized enough. I'll just have to give up men completely."

"I hear you there." He pulled a chair around to sit beside her. "Giving up women completely is something I should have done years ago. No offense."

"None taken." It took a moment for her curiosity to to kick in. "So you and Tina aren't back together?"

Cord sighed heavily. "She's the mother of my children. I'll always care about her. We spent so much of our lives together... she told me the other day that we'll never love anyone else as much as we loved each other, and that's true."

"But..." Blair prompted. She found Cord's problems much more interesting than her own.

"But she thinks that's enough. Every time she says 'trust me' she pulls the ball away and I'm the one that ends up lying flat on my back."

Blair almost choked. Cord's problems weren't more interesting than hers. They were hers, except for the sports metaphor.

"... She charges into every situation with guns blazing," Cord was saying. "That's who she is. I love that about her. But it always ends the same."

"You get your heart broken and you feel like a fool because you didn't learn your lesson the last time."

"There's no way I can trust her when she says things are going to be different this time."

"And it's not fair to say 'prove it.' Not after everything he's been through."

"I didn't tell her to prove it, but that's how she took it. She's on a quest."

"He was never going to stop, no matter what. That tenacity, it's attractive-"

"Too attractive-"

"But it's a double-edged sword. There are times when he needs to stop, and he doesn't."

"Tell me about it."

"At least Tina never told you one of your children was dead and then had you adopt him."

"Blair, she crashed my wedding to another woman with my baby in her arms. Except he wasn't my baby. _He wasn't even hers._"

"Were you supposed to understand that that proved how much she loved you and how you belonged together?"

"Exactly. My fault, anyway, because no matter how hard I grieved for her when she went over that waterfall in Argentina I should have known she wasn't dead because she was sending me thoughts."

"Change 'waterfall in Argentina' to 'cliff in Ireland' and I've been there and done that." Blair's eyes burned with unexpected tears; she was too tired to hold them back. "But this time he has a point. This time I wouldn't blame him if he hated me. I'm not sure if he does hate me and those looks and those touches and that kiss are all some kind of trick. He's right, I should have known."

Cord handed her one of the anachronistic monogrammed handkerchiefs that Buchanan men were required by DNA to carry.

"Blair, you couldn't have known. No one could have foreseen this. When they catch Irene, I'm thinking of having her interrogated to make sure there aren't two Tinas that she's been switching off on me."

"I think the world would have imploded by now if there were two Tinas on it."

"Most of us thought the same thing about two Todds."

"There weren't two Todds, though." Blair sniffled. "There was Todd and there was Victor and they weren't the same. There were things they had in common, but so do Todd and Tina and we don't confuse them."

"That would be awkward," Cord agreed.

"Victor did things I knew Todd wouldn't do. But I let it go because people change. There are things I did once that I wouldn't do now."

"That's true of all of us." Cord rubbed Blair's shoulder, but all that did was remind her that she was wearing Todd's shirt. She was going to see Todd tomorrow and the next day and the next day until she didn't.

"Tina is lucky to have you. She always was."

"Tina doesn't have me. Not like that."

Blair dried her eyes a final time. "I thought Todd didn't have me. I thought the roller coaster was over. Then I found out that the only reason I could get past him was because he wasn't him. I hate to break it to you, but unless Irene really does switch you over to a fake Tina, she'll always have you."

Cord didn't reply. He didn't have to. Instead, he stood up and took the now empty tray from Blair's hands. "You want anything else?"

"No."

"I'm going to come in and check on you a few times tonight, so don't be surprised. You can't mess around with a head injury."

"You don't have to do that."

"I want to. Goodnight, Blair."

"Goodnight, Cord."

He closed the door and she rolled the fabric of the shirt between her fingers. "Goodnight, Todd," she whispered.


	12. Chapter 12

One of McBain's lackeys gestured that Jack and Todd should enter the cell on the right and Starr the cell on the left. To Todd's relief, the cells were otherwise empty; no drunks or thieves would be interrupting his time with his children.

Todd and Jack's ruined clothing had been bagged as evidence because they had been attacked by Irene. Todd didn't think that there was much chance that the "evidence" would be indicative of anything other than the Llantano River's pollution index, but he was glad to get into something dry, even if it was prison-issue.

Across the hall, Starr's sodden clothes still left damp trails in her wake. She sneezed and sniffled, not for the first time.

Todd motioned to the guard. "Can she have something dry to wear?" Then, for good measure, he added "Please?"

"She can have anything she wants," said the guard. He disappeared, not to be seen again for three quarters of an hour. "Sorry, no more clothes." He raised his eyebrows at Starr and left.

Todd was ready to start screaming about police brutality when Starr gestured that he should give it up. "That's the one I pulled the gun on," she said. "It isn't worth it. We need to pick our battles really carefully."

"I need to pick the battle that keeps you from getting pneumonia."

"That's not how pneumonia works. Pneumonia is usually bacterial," said Starr, and Todd braced himself for another lecture at the hands of Starr Manning: Singing Doctor.

Behind Todd, Jack pulled off his shirt and knotted it into a ball. He waved it to get Starr's attention. "I'm going to roll this over to your side, all right? It'll probably go down to, like, your ankles."

Starr's teeth were chattering too hard to rise to the bait. She merely reached through the bars to grab Jack's shirt. Todd pulled off his own shirt and sent it after Jack's, instructing Starr to use it as a towel or a blanket. (The beds were covered only with rough sheets; Todd supposed he should be glad that their jailers had left them that much.)

Todd and Jack turned toward the wall to let Starr change in relative privacy. Todd didn't let himself stare at the marks on Jack's bare back. Irene had obviously put them there earlier that night. There was nothing Todd could do abut that now, but he was going to do something permanent about it at the next opportunity.

"Why would they set the cells up this way, anyway?" Starr complained.

"I liked it better when the cells were side by side so I could kiss your mother through the bars when we were both in jail," Todd told her.

"Please tell me you never actually did that," said Jack.

"We're just getting to know each other. I don't want to start out by lying to you."

"Nobody else's family, right, Jack?" agreed Starr. "Just ours. Growing up Manning."

"I'd rather be in here with you than Irene. Bet she wouldn't turn her back. Bet she stared." Jack cut his eyes sideways to Todd, and Todd's heart soared when he saw something almost like an apology in the glance.

"I could have done without Irene's commentary first thing in the morning." Todd mimicked Irene's voice. "Victor Junior peed much better than you did, Todd. One of the reasons he was always my favorite."

Jack laughed. Todd felt even better. Except for Starr being in danger of frostbite—and he was pretty sure you didn't need bacteria to get frostbite—this was his favorite incarceration ever.

"Turn around," said Starr. "Turn around and tell me about anything that isn't Irene's thoughts on your bathroom habits."

Todd appraised Starr. Jack hadn't been far wrong; the shirt fell to her knees. She looked less bedraggled but still cold.

"Get on the bed. Wrap yourself up in that sheet," Todd instructed.

Starr jumped on the bed. "It's not that different from the floor."

"Someone put a pea under Princess Shorty's mattress?"

"I forgot to tell you. Hope loved the _Beauty and the Beast_ story you told her. Now every time she plays with that playset, Belle doesn't get into the car with strangers."

"Some story," said Jack, but he still didn't sound negative.

Todd's heart pounded. He had Jack in an enclosed space with a tired body and an open mind. It was time to make a move. "I could tell you a story," Todd said to Jack.

Jack looked a question at Starr.

"Let's hear it," said Starr.

_Once upon a time there was a boy named Jack. No one liked to admit it, least of all Jack's family, but everyone knew that his mother was a lady and his father was a lord.  
_  
Starr and Jack were in agreement for once. They both rolled their eyes and scoffed.

_Jack's father disappeared when Jack was a baby, but Jack still had his mother, who just so happened to be the most beautiful, most amazing woman in the world._

Starr softened completely. She wrapped the rough sheet around her body and crawled from the bed to the floor. She pressed herself against the bars, as close to her father as she could get, with a romantic sort of look plastered on her face.

Jack still looked skeptical.

_One day Jack's mother asked him to take the cow into town and sell it. Jack asked why they had a cow to begin with, because it wasn't like they lived on a farm. His mother wasn't sure; she thought Jack's sister Starr must have bought the cow to feed one of her pet lizards and forgotten about it._

As Jack walked along the road to town, he ran into a man who offered to take Jack's cow in exchange for a handful of magic beans. "You won't believe what will grow if you plant them in your garden," the man said.

Jack said "Do you think I'm as stupid as you look? I'm not giving you my cow for beans. I'm going to run an exposé on you in my family's newspaper."

_The man, realizing that Jack was a formidable opponent, ran away so quickly that he dropped one of the beans. Jack picked the bean up and put it in his pocket, sold the cow for twice what it was worth, and split the profits with his mother._

When Jack remembered the bean that night, he laughed and threw it out his bedroom window. Then he fell asleep and dreamed of high circulation numbers despite the digital revolution and declining economy.

He was awakened the next morning by his mother yelling his name.

"Jack!" said the Lady Blair. "Why is there a ten mile high beanstalk outside in the garden?"

_"Why are you asking me? Starr could have been the one to plant it. Sam could have been the one to plant it."_

"Did they?"

"Well, no," said Jack, who loved his sister and brother too much to let them take the blame for something he'd done. "But it would be nice if you didn't always jump to conclusions."

Then Jack told his mother about the man and his magic beans.

"Whatever you do, don't climb the beanstalk. There are monsters that live up there in the sky."

_"What did I just tell you about jumping to conclusions?" asked Jack. "It's not like I was the one who used to call a cab and go wherever the hell I wanted when you wouldn't give me permission."_

"Good point," said Jack, who had stopped pretending not to listen to the story.

"He used to bat his eyes at the waitresses at Carlotta's until they gave him bus fare," Starr volunteered.

Jack made a face at her. Todd filed away this new bit of information about the son he hadn't gotten a chance to know.

_Jack didn't really intend to climb the beanstalk, but before he knew it he was a mile in the air and figured he might as well go the rest of the way. When he reached the top, the first thing he saw was a man sitting at a writing desk dipping his quill into a bottle of ink._

"You don't look like a monster," Jack scoffed.

The man looked up from his desk and said, with a grating Irish accent,

"I whispered, 'I am too young,'  
And then, 'I am old enough;'  
Wherefore I threw a penny  
To find out if I might love."

Suddenly Jack's head grew heavy and his feet began to sink into the clouds. The man continued:

"'Go and love, go and love, young man,  
If the lady be young and fair.'  
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,  
I am looped in the loops of her hair."

The clouds lapped at Jack's neck and began to smother him. Jack didn't care. He would rather be smothered by the clouds than listen to the poet go on about this brown fucking penny.

Then Jack realized that that had been the plan all along. The monster had tried to bore him to death, and he had almost succeeded.

But Jack was too smart for the monster, and he answered:

"There once was an old Irish bore  
And listening to him was a chore  
So shut up, you Mick,  
You're making me sick  
You're hairy and smelly and snore."

The monster-poet knew right then that Jack was a better poet than he would ever be. Tears ran down the monster-poet's hairy body and washed the clouds away from Jack. A whole crowd of people Jack hadn't seen before emerged from the clouds and threw themselves at Jack's feet, thanking him for delivering them from the monster poet of Ireland, and—  
  
"That's Hope's other grandfather you're making fun of," said Starr with a scowl.

Bile rose in Todd's throat and he worked hard to gulp it down. He could not let himself collapse into a vomiting, trembling mess in front of his teenagers even if his head was suddenly full of Blair and Patrick on his penthouse floor; Blair, insisting that Brendan couldn't be dead; Blair, not able to form a coherent sentence after stroking out; Blair, telling Todd that he couldn't raise Starr if he had tried to frame Patrick for murder; Blair, his last thought after Patrick's enemies had pumped him full of bullets and thrown him off a cliff.

He'd been so horrified by the revelation that he and Marty shared a grandchild that he had forgotten to be horrified that he and Patrick shared a grandchild.

Jack grabbed Todd by the shoulders and shoved him in the direction of the stainless steel toilet in the corner of their cell. Todd jumped hard and spun away from Jack. He was able to remind himself of where he was and stop himself before he raised his hand to Jack, who stepped back with a hint of fear in his eyes.

"I'm just saying, if you're going to puke, do it there." He pointed at the toilet. "We're stuck in here all night."

"I'm fine," Todd said. He hoped he didn't sound as shaky to Starr and Jack as he sounded to himself. The room was too small and the locks were too solid and the years he'd missed were too many. "I'm just concerned. Does Hope look unusually hairy to you?" he asked Jack.

"There's nothing wrong with Hope!" Starr snapped. She was still on the cold floor, wrapped in her sheet and shivering painfully.

"Starr, get back on the bed where it's warmer," Todd directed.

Starr, contrary as a child, remained sullenly in place with her jaw locked to keep her teeth from chattering.

"Let's get back to the story. People were throwing themselves at Jack's feet?" Jack tried.

Todd accepted the overture gratefully.

_Jack climbed back down the beanstalk with a bag full of presents and jewels, which he gave to his mother. That didn't stop her from trying to ground him (literally), but when the people begged for Jack the monster-killer to protect them from a new menace, she had to give Jack her blessing to climb back up the beanstalk._

Jack climbed with confidence. He knew now that appearances could be deceiving. He wouldn't be lulled into a false sense of security this time.

When a man wearing a garish smoking jacket waved a square of paper said "My name is MonsterMax and I have something to tell you," Jack swung his axe and killed him with one blow, then threw the pieces of his body into a vat of horse manure that stood beside the stable in the clouds. Jack was strong and fast from playing soccer, so he quickly beheaded the snakes that oozed out of MonsterMax's body, too. 

Todd cut his eyes to Starr to see if he was forgiven. She didn't crack a smile.

_The people were grateful once again, and showered Jack with more gifts._

The beautiful Lady Blair warned him not to let this go to his head. "Monsters are still dangerous. I think we should just cut that beanstalk down."

Jack knew that she was right, but the paper MonsterMax had waved was burning a hole in his pocket. He knew he should never have picked it up; he knew he should throw it away without reading it. He knew that nothing good ever came from opening Pandora's Box, even though that was a whole other fairy tale.

"Technically, that's a myth, not a fairy tale," said Starr.

"Shut up, Starr," said Jack.

"Don't tell your sister to shut up," said Todd.

"Give me back my shirt," said Jack.

"Don't you dare take that shirt off," said Todd.

"Maybe we should all just shut up," said Starr. "We're too old for fairy tales. I'm not a little kid anymore."

"There's no such thing as too old for fairy tales," Todd told her.

"That's what this is, isn't it?" said Jack to Starr. "He used to do this for you when you were a little kid, and you want it to be yours and not mine. You're the kid who made the sun come out, and I'm the kid he threw away, right? You like it that way."

Starr jumped to her feet and glared at Jack through the bars of their cells. "I know you aren't calling me selfish when it's your fault we're in here. If you hadn't lied about seeing Dad at Victor's—"

"Well, if you hadn't convinced everyone that Victor was our father eight years ago—"

"Both of you be quiet!" Todd ordered them. He barely raised his voice, but Starr and Jack obeyed immediately. The parenting touch was coming back. "We are all on the same team here. You are not going to rip out each other's jugulars. We're cold and we're hungry, but we are a family. This time tomorrow, we won't be cold or hungry but we'll still be a family. So, Starr, you will go sit on the bed instead of on the floor and keep yourself as warm as you can because that's what your mother would make you do if we'd let her get arrested with us. And Jack, you will go sit on that bed so that you and your sister can take a break from looking at each other. Capice?"

Starr and Jack retreated to their respective corners.

Todd basked in his success for a moment before sitting beside Jack. He lowered his voice to a whisper. He knew that Starr would still be able to hear them thanks to the hard, echoing surfaces of the jail, but she could ignore them if she wanted to.

He smiled to himself. As if his little Starr had ever been able to resist listening in.

"You want to hear the end of the story?"

Jack shrugged. "Whatever."

Todd was a connoisseur of whatevers and knew that Jack meant "yes."

Jack opened MonsterMax's letter and read it:

_"If you want to know the real reason that Lady Blair did not want you to climb the beanstalk, climb to the highest cloud and walk all day to the left. Look under the darkest rain cloud you can find. You will get answers to all of your questions, but you will be destroyed by the most powerful of all of all of the monsters. He nearly killed you on the day you were born, and the Lady Blair nearly—but, I've said too much."_

Every day for a week, Jack almost asked his mother what she knew about the monsters who lived in the clouds above the beanstalk. But every time, something stopped him. If his mother had wanted him to know, she would have told him. If his mother knew he was worried about MonsterMax's letter, she would be angry.

It was easier to climb miles into the sky and walk all day toward the darkest of the clouds.

Under the darkest cloud, Jack found the ugliest, most deformed monster he had ever seen. He raised his axe to protect himself.

The monster said, "You don't need that. I would never hurt you."

Jack didn't lower his axe. "What do you know about my mother?"

"The Lady Blair? I know everything about the Lady Blair. She is the most beautiful woman who ever lived. You're lucky you look like her and not your father."

"What did you do to her?"

"Too many things to tell you. I lived a thousand lifetimes with the Lady Blair. The only thing that matters is the worst thing."

Jack gripped his axe tightly. "Go on."

"On the day you were born, I took you from her and told her you were dead. I gave you to a stranger without thinking about what might happen to you."

"That's unforgiveable," said Jack.

"I know," said the monster.

And Jack buried the axe in the monster's skull. He accepted his accolades and climbed back down the beanstalk, which he chopped down as his mother had asked.

They all lived happily ever after, except the monster, obviously, because he was dead with his brains all over Jack's axe.

The End. 

Jack looked slightly taken aback, as Todd had hoped against hope that he would. "Are you ready to listen for real?"

Jack pushed himself away from Todd and sat cross legged at the far edge of the bed. He matched Todd's gaze and nodded silently.

"I grew up with an adoptive father who couldn't stand me. He hit me, he burned me with a lighter, he'd make me stay on my knees all night instead of sleeping. He never missed a chance to tell me I was stupid or worthless. I was 25 years old when I found out that my real father was Victor Lord, who wasn't any better. I think you know what he did to your Aunt Viki."

Jack nodded again.

"I never wanted children. I wasn't going to do to them what Victor Lord and Peter Manning did to me. Then your mother told me she was pregnant."

"And the sun came out," Jack mocked.

"No. And the only thing worse than raising that baby neither of us had planned for was letting her raise it with another man. Letting that baby be handed off not knowing who his father was like Victor and Peter did with me. So I married your mother, and when she miscarried that little boy…" Todd closed his eyes with the pain of the memory. "It was awful. I wanted a son. I wanted your mother. I wanted a family with your mother, and only with your mother. With kids, without kids, she was my family."

"But the sun still hadn't—"

"You know what? Let that go. Sometimes you say sappy things to people you care about. I love you and I love your mother and I love your sister and your niece. You all make me happy. Starr was more of a surprise. I had time to think about what it would be like to love your mom. We were acquaintances and then we were friends and then we were good friends and then we were married and then we were a family and then I loved her. With Starr, everything was all at once. There was this concept of a little person I wasn't even sure I wanted to meet, and then two minutes later there was complete and total love. It isn't that I love her more. It's that the shock was bigger."

Jack shrugged unhappily, but gestured that Todd should continue.

"We wanted more children. We were thrilled when we found out you were coming. I couldn't have been happier. Your mom and I had had some rough times and the idea that you were on your way was a sign that the worst was over and everything was going to be all right. Then your mother told me that I wasn't your father. Do you remember Max Holden? Have you met him?"

"I saw him once when Asa Buchanan died. I never talked to him."

"He's an asshole and he didn't appreciate your mother. He hated me. I hated him. He took every chance he got to tell me that we would never have any peace as long as he was your father. He didn't want me around your mom. He didn't want Starr around you. Your mom got sick of Max and me—mostly me—and she went down to Mexico to get the hell away from us. I followed her. She went into labor. I delivered you. I… I couldn't take my eyes off of you. You were so alive. You were kicking your legs and reaching out toward me. You had your eyes locked on my face like you do now. You were going to be a hell raiser, there was never any doubt of that."

"And that made it okay for you to tell Mom I was dead. Got it."

"No! The midwife, Paloma, finally decided to show up and do her damn job. It hit me that I could keep Max out of your mother's and Starr's and my life and make sure you wouldn't be raised by a man who hated your father. I wasn't going to be your Peter Manning. I wasn't going to have Max pitting you and Starr against each other. I told Paloma to get rid of you. I… I gave you to nuns. Nuns take care of children, don't they? A baby as beautiful and healthy as you was going to find a home with someone who really wanted you—and you did."

"And _that's_ what made it okay for you to tell Mom I was dead?"

"Nothing made that okay. That's what made me go crazy. I want you to know what I was thinking then so you don't have to worry that I'll betray you or someone else that you love that way now. If you can understand why, you can understand that nothing like that will ever happen again. Ever. I spent two years trying to untangle the mess I made in one stupid, deluded moment. When they took me away, I was saying your name over and over. Mitch was telling me that you would be a true disgusting Lord, Victor's grandson, and I was swearing I would give every drop of blood in my body to make sure that you had the chance to be better. I did something terrible to you and I did something terrible to your mother. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Jack. But I'm going to spend the rest of my life making it up to you. I'm going to ask you to be generous enough to give me that chance. I'm going to ask you for the honor of getting to know you. What do you say?"

There was a long silence.

"I'll think about it," said Jack.

"That's the thing about jail," Todd told Jack. "It gives you a lot of time to think."

Todd had always had thoughts to hang on to in jail.

_I have a son. His name is Jack._


	13. Chapter 13

Pain shot through Blair's head as she tried to focus on the alarm clock beside Todd's bed.

Todd's bed.

She ran her hand over the sheets and unwillingly imagined that Todd was beside her. His hair, creeping over his eyes and waiting to be pushed back by her fingers. His scar, a fading reminder of what it was like to be an outcast but find a kindred spirit, was hardly perceptible any longer when she stroked it. The broad curve of his shoulder, the skin growing warmer as she—

"Viki's house," Blair whispered aloud, opening a new burst of pain behind her eyes. "We wouldn't be doing that in Viki's bed even if he were here."

The clock read 4:55. It was too early to do anything to help Starr or Jack, but she couldn't very well keep lying in Todd's bed and thinking of Todd. That was a complication no one needed in the middle of murderous psychopaths, mistaken identity, and bail hearings.

She jumped to her feet; the world spun to protest that she had moved too quickly. She grabbed the dresser to steady herself and nearly knocked over the carafe of orange juice that was sitting in a bucket of ice. Next to it were a muffin, a small plastic bottle, and a note.

_Blair—_

For your headache. Do NOT take the pills without food.

Call if you need me.

Cord

Her eyes flooded at his thoughtfulness. Cord never stopped reminding the world why his cowboy hat was white and not black. Blair rarely agreed with Tina, but she certainly understood why someone would move heaven and earth to bring Cord back to her life.

By the time she'd washed her face and made the bed (she couldn't leave the bed unmade while she was feeling vulnerable—that had gotten her kicked out of a foster home forty years earlier) the headache had subsided and she felt safe to drive.

She raided Todd's dresser one more time and found nothing that made her look less like she was a twentysomething making the walk of shame on the morning after. She did pick out a shirt and a pair of slacks that would serve Todd better than whatever he was wearing now if he had to attend a bail hearing this morning.

She turned Cord's note over and wrote:

_Cord—_

Thank you for everything. See you soon.

Love,

Blair

The "love" was just for the hell of it when Tina inevitably saw the note. Besides, Blair would have sworn her undying fealty to anyone who had left her those pills. After the conversation they'd had last night, there was no chance of Cord misunderstanding.

She padded down the hall in her bare feet. Bree's door was open a crack; both Sam and Bree were breathing peacefully, eyes closed, smiles on their faces.

Further down the hall, Hope was sleeping soundly in Liam and Ryder's nursery. "You'll see your Mommy in a few hours. She can't wait," Blair whispered.

There was a creaking noise as if someone had stepped on a loose floorboard. (Since when did Viki allow an imperfection like a loose floorboard?)

Blair braced herself to kill Irene with her bare hands before the psycho got anywhere near the children. "Who's there?" she called softly.

There was no answer but a disgruntled yip from beneath Liam's crib. Tina's dog, Princess David Vickers, turned in a noisy circle and lay down again.

"It was you? Shut up and try to be less of a bitch than your owner," Blair told the dog, which favored her with a withering look. It had obviously heard the bitch joke before.

It was past time for Blair to get out of a crowded house where even the dog disliked her and back to La Boulaie where she could start getting things ready for Jack and Starr.

She texted Mickey Horton to call her as soon as he was awake. She picked out fresh clothes for Starr and Jack. She changed herself out of Todd's underwear and into something appropriate for the mother of teenagers who did not deserve to be locked up. She logged on to the Logan's website and ordered new pajamas for all of the children, to be delivered upon the store's opening, in celebration of her family's return to their own beds. She removed Jack's laptop from the safe to which it had been confined since the MyFace incident and returned it to his desk. He had taken a big step yesterday; he deserved a big reward today.

After an eternity, it was time to return to the jail.

* * *

The earliest hours of the morning were the worst. Todd, Starr, and Jack were tired of talking; tired of trying to stay still and pretending to rest; tired of being sore and cold and hungry; and above all, tired of waiting.

In the hopes that if he was very quiet he wouldn't trigger another sniping match between Jack and Starr, Todd sat on the edge of the disreputable bunk bed and fantasized about the sandwich he had refused to eat the last time he'd been here. Had it only been a few days ago?

His stomach, sore and aching, growled loudly.

When a guard arrived bearing a tray of what was probably supposed to be oatmeal, Todd could have kissed him. Jack snapped to attention, too, and gulped down the contents of his bowl before the cell door had been re-locked.

Todd winced. Jack was about to confess to his role in an accidental death and then confess to perjury. He needed his wits about him, and that meant not being distracted by hunger.

Meanwhile, Todd was about eight hours removed from swearing anew to rededicate his life to making up for what he'd done to Jack at birth.

This selfless parenthood thing really sucked, even when it wasn't actually selfless because he would benefit from Jack's statement.

Todd pushed his bowl at Jack. "Eat mine too."

"You sure?" Jack asked, but he was already devouring the sloppy mess with his eyes.

"Yeah," said Todd, and he turned away so he wouldn't have to see any more.

He shuddered when his eyes fell on Nora Buchanan, looking as if she had seen a ghost. She had clearly not spent the last eight years missing him.

She shook her head in distaste as she took in Jack scarfing down the last of Todd's breakfast.

"I remember one of the first times I saw you, Todd," she said. Jack and Starr both jumped; neither one of them had noticed Nora's entrance. "I was getting you and your frat brothers ready for your trial. They were all too nervous to eat. Even Kevin, who knew he hadn't even been in Marty's room that night. But you, you were shoving a sandwich the size of your head into your mouth like you didn't have a care in the world. You didn't care what you'd put Marty through. How does it feel to pass that attitude on to your son?" She gestured to Jack, who had put the second empty bowl down beside the first. "He's about to admit that he murdered a young mother and left her son without the only parent he's known for most of his life, and he doesn't care any more than—"

Nora's rant was punctuated by the spatter of vomit hitting the floor. Todd grabbed Jack by the neck and got his head over the toilet for the second heave.

"Nora, my brother didn't murder anyone. It was an accident!" Starr shrieked from the other cell. "Don't tell me Matthew never made a mistake, because I know that isn't true!"

"Counselor, why are you speaking to my underage client without his attorney present?"

"Mr. Horton!" Nora's obvious discomfort was music to Todd's ears. "I wasn't speaking to Jack, I was speaking to his father. I have a long enough history with Todd to know that he would request an attorney for himself or his son if he wanted to."

"I hope that that history wouldn't cause an unfair bias against the young man." Mickey Horton made the accusation in such a distracted, grandfatherly way that Nora took a step back and lowered her voice before she defended herself. Blair had made a good strategic decision.

"I assure you, I am quite capable…"

Jack whimpered under Todd's hand and Todd tuned out Nora's retreating self-righteous rant to focus on his son. Todd preferred vomit to Nora, anyway.

"Everything up?" Todd whispered. He started to rub his hand in a circle on Jack's back before he saw the bruises and stopped himself. He settled for squeezing Jack's shoulder.

"Think so," Jack muttered. "Sorry."

"What for?" Todd pulled Jack to his feet and sat him back on the bed. "I appreciate you eating that food so I didn't have to. Maybe we can raise your allowance if you become my taste tester going forward."

Jack looked at the floor. Todd pulled the sheet off the top bunk and spread it over the oatmeal so neither one of them would have to see it any more.

"I know you were hungry. I could hear your stomach."

"I wasn't hungry for anything that looks the same going down and coming up. Are you in pain? Did you just eat too fast?"

Jack shrugged. "Sorry," he repeated.

"Did you know that when I met your mother I was working as a janitor at the hospital?" Todd tried.

"Yeah, I knew that."

"So this kind of thing is nothing new for me, all right?"

Jack nodded stiffly, but didn't say anything else until a guard arrived with an armload of clothes. "Your mother and your lawyer are waiting upstairs," he told Jack as he distributed the rest of the clothing to Starr and Todd. Todd was grateful that Blair hadn't insisted on fetching Jack herself. It was better if she didn't see firsthand that his first night with his children in eight years had resulted in Starr shivering herself blue and Jack throwing up on the floor.

A long hour after Jack was escorted away, the guard returned for Starr, who left in a flurry of assurances and blown kisses.

Todd was alone again. He tossed himself onto the hard, stripped top bunk and contemplated the best thing to say to Blair when he saw her again.  
_  
"I know Starr got hypothermia on my watch, but you were the one who let her jump in the river in the first place!"_

"Jack has gone almost 12 hours without calling me 'Scarface.' Can't we just celebrate?"

"Made out with anyone through the bars of a cell lately? Would you like to?"

"Since you brought me these clothes to put on, want to go full circle and take them off?"

Just as he was starting to find the game surprisingly entertaining, the click of high heels bounced off the hard walls. All at once, Todd jumped from the bed, eager not to wait a second longer to see Blair than he had to.

Seeing Tina instead was more than a small disappointment.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded without preamble.

Tina reached through the bars to pat his shoulder in a way that was probably supposed to be sisterly. "Is that any way to talk to the person who came down here to bail you out?"

"I don't need you to bail me out." At least, he didn't think he did. Blair had all but said she was going to bail him out the night before. She had brought him fresh clothes. She couldn't have gotten angry enough to leave him to rot in the past two hours, could she have? Even Blair was angry, Starr wouldn't leave him here alone.

"Just in case things don't go how you planned," said Tina sweetly. "Big sisters always have to look out for their little brothers."

Tina tapped Todd on his nose. Todd rubbed off her touch.

"Tina?" Todd queried.

"That's my name."

"Are you sure? You're not Dena? Or Gina?"

"Disassociative—"

"Or Lena?"

"—Identity—"

"Or Nina?"

"—Disorder—"

"Or Mina?"

"—Is not something to joke about."

"I came back after eight years to the whole Jess-Tess thing. Maybe everyone got D.I.D. while I was gone."

Tina's cheery demeanor didn't falter. "No, Todd, I'm still me. I'm merely turning over a new leaf."

"How's that working out for you so far?"

Tina glanced over her shoulder to assure herself that they were alone. "It was going fine until you basically demanded that Viki take Blair in last night and manipulated a seven-year-old into sealing the deal."

"I didn't manipulate Sam. I asked him. I instructed him. I coached him. It was all very forthright."

"Not important. What is important was that little Sam wasn't the only one sealing deals, if you know what I mean."

"I don't think I'd be comfortable knowing what you mean."

"Too bad," Tina hissed. "I'm not going to be the only one who's uncomfortable around here. As soon as Blair showed up looking even worse than she usually does, you can bet Cord was going to do whatever it took to make her feel better."

"I don't think sex is what people usually do to make concussions feel better," Todd said, choosing to ignore the fact that in his days as a football star he had used his valiant on-field injuries as a pickup line on multiple occasions.

"I didn't either. I spent the whole night being generous and respectful of Cord's kindness, and not being jealous at all. I didn't confront him about going in and out of her room all night because people do that with concussions, right? Then this morning I went into the nursery to check on Princess David Vickers."

Todd shook his head to clear it. "Back up. Princess What?"

"Princess David Vickers! She's my dog, your children's cousin. You need to learn these things now that you're back."

Todd quickly determined that while there were many things he needed to learn, that was not one of them. "So you were in the dog's nursery."

"It's _Liam and Ryder's_ nursery," said Tina as if Todd was being unreasonably obtuse. "I couldn't find Princess David Vickers and I know she gravitates to the babies—she's very maternal. Blair was in there, and do you know what she was wearing?"

"A red dress with a low neckline?" He was pretty sure it wasn't the right answer, but he liked it anyway. If Blair absolutely had to be dressed, he was partial to red.

"Underwear. Men's underwear. Cord's underwear."

Todd couldn't stop his hands from forming themselves into fists. He had always known that after being gone for eight years, he wouldn't find Blair unattached. He had had plenty of time to remind himself not to make the same mistake he'd made with Professor Torn-heart. He wouldn't hold the relationship against Blair; he'd simply make sure she ended it.

But he hadn't expected her to jump into bed with someone else hours after he'd saved their son's life and she'd stood a breath away from him in the water, running her hands through his hair.

He'd already forgiven her for not noticing or caring when he'd disappeared and been replaced with his evil twin. Somehow, this felt worse. She really didn't care how he felt at all.

"That doesn't mean anything," he justified weakly. He didn't expect Tina to buy it. He didn't buy it.

"Then she slunk out of the house and she left this behind for Cord." She pulled a note out of her pocketbook and tried to hand it to Todd.

"I don't like it when Manning women bring me notes in prison. Last time Irene did that, she tried to kill my family."

Tina rolled her eyes. "Then allow me to read: 'Cord. Thank you for everything. See you soon. Love, Blair.' _Love_!"

"What do you want me to do about it? She can love whoever she wants. It's a free country. I mean, not for me." He banged his head on the bars, but not too hard. "For the rest of you, it is."

Tina twisted herself around the bars to look Todd in the eye. "Look, I know the revelation that our mother faked her death and abandoned us so she could go around torturing people, including you, is a lot to take. But this is not the time to feel sorry for yourself. This is the time to get out there and fight."

"You want me to punch Cord?" That had a certain appeal.

"Fight for Blair! Remind her how much she loved you! This thing with Cord can't be serious yet. It's only been about a year since that Elijah person died, but a year without a man in Blair time is, like, ten years in real time so she must have been frustrated and desperate, and Cord is very handsome and he likes her, so—"

Todd clapped his hands over his ears. "Please stop."

"Promise me you'll fight for Blair as soon your bail gets paid."

"Order me a pizza and I'll consider it." He didn't know what to feel about Blair, but he knew he was still hungry. "Two pizzas. And wings. And mozzarella sticks. And—"

"I will get you a takeout menu, I will order you anything you want, I will pay your bail, if you get Blair the hell away from my husband."

"Are you and Cord married again?"

"You know what I mean," snapped Tina, and she turned on her heel, leaving him alone.

The scary thing was, Todd did know what she meant. He knew it viscerally.

It wasn't Tina who returned a moment later, but the guard. "All right, Manning, bail is paid. Let's get you out of here."


	14. Chapter 14

It hadn't been all that dark in the holding cell, but Todd still felt a burst of disorientation as he stepped into the better-lit processing room. He looked around for Tina and didn't see her. He did see Jack slumped into a chair with his head down while Blair stood over him, chattering into her phone. Making plans with Cord, probably.

"Dad!" Starr gave him a tight hug around his chest. "Hurry up and sign everything so we can get out of here."

"You were waiting for me?"

Starr looked up at him with confusion. "You thought we would leave you here? Come on." She dragged him over to a desk where a uniformed officer put him through his paces. He noticed that Blair, and not Tina, had been the one to sign off on his bail. He let his finger trace over her signature.

Starr rolled her eyes. "Hurry up!" she whispered in Todd's ear. "The real thing is right over there."

"I thought Tina was going to do this."

"Aunt Tina? I know Mom said she was in town but I haven't seen her. Definitely not here."

Tina must have slipped out when she'd seen that Blair wasn't going to leave Todd to rot after all. "Too bad. She promised me pizza."

"Hey Mom!" Starr shouted across the room. "Dad wants to go home with Aunt Tina instead of us because she promised him pizza." Blair laughed and appeared to repeat the comment to Cord so he could laugh too.

When Todd's paperwork had been processed, they all said goodbye to Mickey Horton and trooped out to Blair's car. Blair handed the keys to Starr and got into the passenger seat, still playing with her phone. "People who don't have driver's licenses can sit in the back," she told Jack and Todd.

"Hey, that's right!" said Starr. She peeked at her father and brother in the rearview mirror. "Maybe the two of you can take the exam together next month."

"They probably won't ever let me get a license now," Jack muttered.

"They let your mother get a license. They'll let anyone get a license," Todd assured him.

Blair glanced into the back seat. "There's nothing about that in the settlement Mickey is working on for you," she told Jack. "Nora didn't ask for that."

"At least you have an identity. You can go in there and say 'John Cramer Manning' and they'll take your picture and print it up for you," said Todd grumpily. It didn't seem fair that he could be hungry enough to contemplate eating the back of Starr's seat and jealous enough to want to bash in Cord Roberts' face but that he also did not officially exist.

"Mickey says Justin's making progress on that, too," Blair said. "No one really doubts who you are. They have to get through the red tape, that's all."

Starr turned into La Boulaie just as another car pulled up from the opposite direction.

Todd sat bolt upright as the smell of grease hit him and his mouth flooded with saliva. He unfastened his seat belt and jumped out of the car, ignoring Starr's shriek that maybe he should have waited for her to stop first.

"Cramer?" The deliveryman asked.

"Yeah, whatever," Todd agreed. There were ten boxes of pizza stacked one on top of the other and two bulging paper bags of chicken wings and garlic bread. There was no way he could carry everything; he would have to take the pizzas and risk the rest of the food getting struck by lightening or destroyed by raccoons or stolen by whoever was pulling into the driveway behind them.

"You need me to sign anything?" Blair asked the deliveryman as Todd hastened inside with his prize.

"Credit card was fine. Enjoy," he told her.

Todd dropped the boxes unceremoniously on the kitchen counter and ripped the top off the top box. He swallowed the first slice without looking at what he was eating. With the second slice, he took the extra step of chewing and noticed the taste of cheese spreading around his tongue and warming his throat. With the third slice, he became aware of fresh, earthy mushrooms and spicy sausage.

Jack brought the heavy bags of side orders down on the counter and jumped onto a stool. He pulled a box out of the middle of the stack and flipped it open. The smell of Alfredo sauce wafted richly over them both.

"Chicken Alfredo is my favorite kind," Jack offered with his mouth full.

Since it was practically the nicest thing Jack had ever said to him, Todd felt obligated to defer to Jack's judgment and try the Alfredo pizza. He and Jack were just fumbling open the third box- this one turned out to be Hawaiian- when Sam came careening toward them at full speed.  
_  
"Don't eat them all!"_ he yelled.

"How did you get here?" Todd asked. He hadn't known Sam long, he knew Sam was enough like his siblings to hitchhike or hire a limo service or do whatever else was necessary to get where he wanted to go.

"Jessica drove us but they can't get Hope out of the car seat, and I knew you were going to eat all the wings and not save me any."

"We wouldn't do that." Todd grabbed Sam with his pizza-free hand and lifted him onto a stool. Sam reached for the brown shopping bags and started tossing wrapped packages of garlic bread and fried mushrooms out of the way. One bag landed on Todd's lap.

"Onion rings! I didn't even think of that!" Todd groaned. He hadn't hadn't had onion rings since rejoining the world. He shoved a handful into his mouth and crunched them as hard as he could, relishing the feeling of the hot, almost-liquid onions escaping their shell.

"Mom got honey mustard and salt and pepper and sesame and regular hot wings!" Sam exclaimed. He emptied the wings onto one of the empty boxtops so they could all share. Sam was a good kid.

* * *

It was Bree who eventually managed to get her small hands beneath the jammed buckle to release Hope from the car seat. Starr tried to lift Hope into a hug, but Hope stiffened and squirmed and was far more interested in the mountain of leaves the landscaping service had raked together the day before. Thirty seconds later, Bree and Hope were happily diving into the pile.

Starr made a face. "I've spent the past three days killing myself worrying about her and she wasn't even excited to see me."

"Oh, she missed you," Jessica promised. "She just never worried about whether you'd be back."

"I guess." Starr sighed and leaned against Jessica's car, her eyes never leaving Hope.

"What?" Blair prompted. "She's happy, she's healthy. She's perfect."

Starr sighed again. "Dad seems to think so. She adores him already."

"Of course she does. Your father is always the pied piper with anyone under the age of fifteen."

"Uncle Todd has always been great with kids. He was with me," Jessica agreed. "I can't wait for Bree and Ryder to get to know him better."

"But Victor wasn't really like that. I keep thinking that even if somehow I didn't know before I was pregnant with Hope and he knocked me down those stairs and didn't even care, I should have known then."

"We weren't questioning it then, honey," Blair pointed out. "He'd been with us for years. It wasn't as if he just showed up in town, said he was Todd, and started hurting children and setting up love shacks for the woman he raped."

"And letting his niece's psychotic alter blackmail him into ignoring her while she tried to kill half her family," Jessica said wryly. "The first time I saw Todd last month I told him I knew that there was something different about Victor, but I don't know if that was fair. It's not like I integrated and said 'hey, Mom, I get how mad you are at Aunt Tina, but do you really think this in character for Uncle Todd?'"

"You had so much going on, Jessica," Blair said. "So did you, Starr. When you're sixteen years old and pregnant and your father gets angry, you don't jump to wondering if he got body snatched like some science fiction movie. You find a way to take care of your baby because she becomes the most important thing in your life. That's what you did."

"I was thinking about that the other day. How if it hadn't been for Victor and the way he was about Cole and me, Hope probably wouldn't exist. We wouldn't have… done what we did without preparing. It's like I have a choice between my father getting tortured for eight years and my daughter never being born."

"No one gave you that choice. It just happened," said Jessica sharply. "You'll drive yourself crazy if you keep thinking like that. I could say that if Todd had been here instead of Victor, he wouldn't have given in to Tess and then Chloe would have lived."

Starr stiffened, remembering the months that they had all believed that Chloe had lived and it was Hope who had died. She remembered the all-consuming grief, the emptiness, the anger, the looks in the high school hallways, Cole turning to drugs, the fear that this might not have happened if she hadn't been arrogant enough fight everyone else in her life and insist on giving Hope to the woman who had kidnapped Sam…

"But if I'd had Chloe, who knows if I would have had Ryder?" Jessica continued. "Would I have fallen in love with Brody? Not that I'm all that happy about the Brody chapter of my life, but…" Jessica trailed off.

"So there's no chance for you and Brody?" Starr asked, grateful for an opening to change the subject away from exhausted what-ifs.

"Hard to have a chance with a man who has a baby with your twin sister," Jessica said coolly. She raised her voice. "Come on, Bree, time to go!"

"You and Bree are welcome to stay for pizza," Blair offered.

Jessica refused politely. Starr and Blair dragged an unwilling Hope out of the pile of leaves and into the warm kitchen.

Half a dozen empty pizza boxes lay on the floor beside ripped brown bags shining with grease spots. Sam's face was smeared with hot sauce; so were his glasses. Todd and Jack were rolling slices of pizza around mozzarella sticks while their mouths were full of French fries.

Starr and Blair caught each other's eyes with amusement and rescued one of the remaining pizzas from the stack still on the counter. They retreated to the table with Hope, ignoring the carnage beside them.

* * *

Blair had just gotten Sam cleaned off and herself dosed with painkillers when there was a knock on her open bedroom door. Starr stood there, looking about twelve years old clad in navy blue pajama pants patterned with glittering gold stars and a matching yellow top.

"Thank you!" she said with a grin.

"You're welcome." Blair grinned back. "I know you're a little old to have stars on all your clothes like you used to, but I saw those and I couldn't resist."

"I love them." Starr gave Blair an easy hug; Blair pulled back with discontent when she felt the goosebumps on Starr's skin.

"I should have gotten you something with long sleeves," she said, rubbing her hands up and down Starr's bare arms.

"It's all in my head. It was freezing in that stupid cell last night and I can't get warm. Actually, can we finish this conversation under the covers?"

Without waiting for a response, Starr tucked herself into Blair's bed. Blair joined her. Moments like this were fewer and further between as Starr grew up, and Blair treasured them. For the next half hour, Blair got Starr's report on everything that had happened the night before.

* * *

It was against Todd's nature to clean up a mess when he knew someone was paid to do it for him. He broke his own rule because taking pizza boxes out the the garbage gave him an excuse to walk the perimeter of La Boulaie without looking like he was checking on the security precautions. He saw no signs of Irene, but he double checked the locks on every door and window just in case.

No one had commented one way or the other about whether he was still staying at La Boulaie, so he determined that he would stay until Blair demanded that he leave and then put up an argument. He went looking for Starr to run his plan by her, but found both her room and Hope's empty.

He stopped, mesmerized, in the open door of Blair's room. Starr and Blair were nestled in bed together like he'd seen them a hundred times before. Starr looked so young with her face devoid of makeup that he could have sworn he hadn't lost eight years after all. His whole body ached to be close to them, protecting them from the monsters in their dreams and the monsters the Llanview PD was too incompetent to catch.

He had almost reached the bed before Starr and Blair turned toward him in perfect unison. The same tilt of the head; the same sleepy smile.

_I have a daughter. Her name is Starr. Starr has a mother. Her name is Blair. Blair. Starr's mother is Blair. Blair is my wife._

He sat on the edge of the bed and they didn't stop him. He didn't say anything because there were no words to express the way it felt to be close to them again after replaying their lives together over and over. For a minute, before they had to wrangle Jack and fight off Irene and protect Sam and Hope, he just wanted to breathe with Blair and Starr. They let him.

* * *

Jack settled down at his desk with his computer. In the last day, he'd been kidnapped and beaten. He'd been tied up and shot at. He'd thrown himself off a building and nearly drowned in the Llantano River. He'd confessed to killing Gigi and lying about Victor's murder. He'd spent a night in jail listening to his biological father explain why he'd given him away at birth. He'd made a fool of himself getting so nervous he'd puked oatmeal all over the floor while Todd and his mini-me Starr acted like jail was a minor inconvenience. And then Todd had been the one holding his head just gently enough and asking if he was all right, without one word about Jack being stupid or ungrateful or suffering from Fakeus Extremus.

(In Victor's defense, Jack had gone through a phase where he'd liked to make himself throw up to get out of going to school. That was when Victor had coined the Fakeus Extremus diagnosis. Todd didn't know about that, so of course Todd hadn't pointed out that Jack was an idiot when Jack already knew that he was an idiot. It wasn't that Jack was betraying Victor by thinking that sometimes it was nicer to be with Todd or anything like that.)

Blair had tried to talk to him at the police station and again when they got home, but Jack didn't want to talk about how he felt and why he was worried. He just wanted to be a normal teenager and zone out surfing the net for a while.

As if by magic, his computer had returned to his bedroom after its long stay in Aunt Dorian's safe. He felt a mix of anticipation and relief as it blinked to life.

The screen froze, demanding a password. He entered his old password; it was rejected.

Jack looked back at the note that had been left beside the laptop. Down at the bottom, in small letters, was a line he had missed:

_PW: momlovesme_

He rolled his eyes, but he also had to will himself not to choke up. It did feel better to be able to talk to Blair again.

The screen froze again, this time with a message.

_You may not change the password._

You have no expectation of privacy.

You may not set up a new MyFace account.

You may set up other online accounts, but they must be cleared with your mother.

Click OK and then go tell Mom that you have read and understood this message.

Jack clicked "OK" and got wearily to his feet. He was tired and sore and he just wanted to disappear instead of jumping through more hoops. Still, he wasn't going to lose computer privileges the day he got them back. He set off down the hall with the laptop gripped in one hand.

He shouldn't have been surprised to see all of them- the perfect little family that they'd been until Todd had sold Jack and things had gone to hell- together, bonding peacefully with him elsewhere. Starr had even gotten under the covers of Blair's bed like a little kid. He'd been stupid to think that it was nice to talk to Mom again and that maybe Todd was almost okay. They'd probably all been in here laughing at him, or worse, they'd forgotten he existed.

Unconsciously, Jack clutched the laptop to his chest and started to back away. He would watch TV until he fell asleep instead.

"Jack."

Too late. Blair sat up and pointed to the chair beside the bed. Jack sank into it reluctantly. It was soft and overstuffed, making it hard for him to sit up straight and keep his raw back from brushing up against the cushions.

"You got the message?"

"Loud and clear," he said hoarsely.

"Good. Why don't you stay right there and set up your new whatever you want to set up." It was an order, not a suggestion.

Jack nodded, willing to agree to anything to get online with his own computer again. He was halfway through creating a new email account when Todd kicked an ottoman up against the chair and repositioned Jack so he was lying on his stomach with the computer propped in front of him with a pillow.

"You can't sit in that kind of chair with bruises on your back," Todd told Blair.

Blair started in horror. "Oh, God, Jack, I'm sorry. Why didn't you say something?"

"Didn't feel like it," said Jack, because he hadn't.

He was spared further interrogation by the entrance of Sam, with Hope trailing in his wake. "What are you all doing in here? Something fun?" Sam demanded. He and Hope jumped onto the bed with the others. Starr grabbed Hope and tickled her so she giggled before pulling her under the covers.

"We're being quiet," Todd told Sam. "Can you be quiet?"

"No, he can't," Blair, Starr, and Jack chorused automatically.

"Can too!" Sam protested. He mimed zipping his lips and settled into the space between Todd and Blair.

To Jack's surprise, the only sound in the room after that was the soft click of his keys. His eyelids grew heavier and heavier; he hadn't slept in days, and he'd gotten more than enough exercise. He put the computer on the floor and claimed the pillow for his head when he felt himself passing out, completely safe.


	15. Chapter 15

One of the things Todd would never understand about his children was the way they appeared to like going to school. Jack had a reasonable excuse— of course he wanted to escape his family and do something normal after the past few days— and Sam was wound up about how Bree would never let him forget it if she got to do whatever it was and he didn't. But Starr's insistence that she couldn't miss another day of class (did professors even take attendance in college?) was downright bizarre, and Hope mimicked her mother.

The younger children were sent off with bodyguards.

The teenagers were sent off with strict instructions that they were not to be alone, ever, and if they did otherwise they would be getting bodyguards of their own whether they liked it or not.

That left Todd and Blair alone together for the first time in days.

Perhaps that was why Starr had hustled herself and Hope out of the house. It wouldn't have been the first time Todd's Shorty had done him that kind of favor.

"So," Todd said to Blair as they stood at the front window and watched Starr drive away.

"So?"

"Our daughter, our son, our granddaughter, and my best friend Sam are out of the way. Isn't it time for you to call Cord?"

"Why would I do that?" He had to hand it to Blair; she sounded genuinely puzzled. He loved the way she could pull off a lie oh-so-innocently. He just didn't like it when she directed her lies at him.

"I'm not saying you have to send flowers or anything, but a gentleman likes a phone call on the morning after. Or, the morning after the morning after if you were busy getting your children and their father out of jail on the first morning after."

Blair crossed her arms and fixed him with a hard gaze. So help him, but even under the circumstances having her full attention directed at him made his pulse speed up and his abdomen contract.

"What are you implying?" She knew what he was implying, all right; her voice was starting to take on the extra southern twang it got when he was pissing her off.

"I'm implying that you spent last night with our children and me, but you spent the night before last at Llanfair, which happens to be the temporary residence of the handsome and charming Mr. Cordero Roberts."

"Who made it impossible for me to leave Llanfair that night? Let me think—oh, right, that was you! Back to your old tricks of using my children against me."

The reminder of how worried he'd been took some of the sting out of his indignation. He ran his hand over the fading bruise on her face, briefly letting himself swim in the relief that Irene hadn't done any worse damage. "I was afraid of your head hurting and you being alone," he told her honestly. "I needed to know that you were safe."

Her eyes widened and her face softened under his touch, like that was all it took to bring her from intense irritation to melting into him. The she stepped back, and in his regret he almost didn't hear what she said.

"So to be perfectly clear, you think Cord tried to heal my concussion with his penis."

"Well, it sounds stupid when you put it that way."

"By all means, Todd, put it a way that it doesn't sound stupid."

"You were walking around that house in his clothes. His very personal clothes that he doesn't ordinarily display to just anyone, unless he has a whole other life that I don't know about, which is possible, I guess, a lot of things I wouldn't have expected happened while I was gone—"

"Who told you that? About me wearing his clothes?"

Todd had a dizzying sense of déjà vu. He knew that the answer he was about to give was not one that had ever worked out for him. But it was the only answer he had, so he went for it. "Tina."

"Tina." Blair smiled and nodded. "Your sister Tina, right? I want to make sure we're talking about the same Tina."

"I asked her if she had any alters and she said no."

"Before I gave him his computer back, Jack sometimes had to use my computer for school, right?"

Todd shrugged. He guessed that that made sense.

"He has to file his biology lab reports online. There's a whole textbook on the website, and right in the first chapter there's a picture of your sister Tina. And you know what the caption says?"

"I think you're making this up."

"It says _Tina Lord Roberts: proof that evolution goes in reverse_."

"Does it say anything about what you're supposed to think when you see a woman in a man's underwear?"

Without a word, Blair stomped upstairs. Todd had just decided to chase her regardless of whether he knew why she had run away in the middle of their argument when he heard her coming closer again.

"Here. Take a good look at the evidence, detective." She threw a t-shirt and a pair of boxers at his chest.

Todd jumped back. "I have not been desperate enough to wear Cord's clothes since I told CJ and Sarah that I was genie and asked them to steal something for me to wear. How are CJ and Sarah? No one's mentioned them."

Blair glared and pointed. Todd squinted at the clothes on the floor. They just looked like clothes. They even looked like the same kind Viki had gotten him (or, he hoped, paid someone to get for him because he really didn't want his sister picking out his underwear).

"Not Cord's," Blair narrated just as the lightbulb went off in Todd's head. "Yours. Cord was in my room—your room—that night. We spent a long time talking. Talking about Tina. Talking about you. Talking about what a pain in the ass it is to know that the love of your life is one of Victor and Irene's possessive, impulsive, persistent _children_!"

"There was a note," Todd said roughly. "It was your handwriting. Addressed to Cord. You signed it 'love.'"

"Because I enjoy messing with Tina's little pea brain, all right? I deserve a hobby."

"You deserve everything." Todd stepped over the clothes so that his face was an inch from Blair's. "I want to give you everything. I can't right now, but as soon as I'm officially me again, I will."

"A piece of paper isn't going to change anything."

"No?"

He didn't let her answer. Instead, he pressed his lips over hers, harder and more demanding and more desperate than he'd meant to. But she'd just called him the love of her life, so he didn't think she'd mind.

He tore his mouth off of hers and moved his lips down her jaw and her neck. He hadn't been able to do that at the Vickerman premiere. Blair stumbled backwards and Todd took the opportunity to maneuver them both onto the couch in a tangle of arms and legs. Whether accidentally or on purpose, she rolled her hips against his, sending a shock radiating through his body to the tips of his fingers and toes. Blair's legs squeezed his waist and he groaned as every muscle in his body tightened in preparation for a release he'd needed for eight years.

Then somehow Blair was halfway across the room with her arms wrapped around her body like his were supposed to be.

He stood up in turn and straightened his clothes, taking care not to do anything to exacerbate the pressure on his groin.

"You kept me alive for eight years," he told her. "There's nothing I wouldn't do to come back to you. Take a raft across the ocean, keep myself together while Irene tortured me, jump off a roof into the Llantano River with our son. You said I'm the love of your life. I know you're the love of mine. Everything that I am, everything I have that is positive, started when someone played that God-awful song on the jukebox at Rodi's."

"You used to say we didn't meet until the night at the park bench."

"When I spent eight years without you I couldn't even joke about any of the time I had with you not happening. I had to hold on to all of it."

That hung in the air for a minute before Blair answered. "I do love you, Todd. I always have and I know I always will."

"Then why..." Todd gestured at the couch. "Weren't you having a nice time?"

"_Too_ nice a time," Blair said emphatically. "One more kiss and I would have lost my damn mind."

"We could have put it back when we were done."

Blair laughed hollowly. "No, Todd, we couldn't have. It wouldn't have come back until- probably until we were married again and some secret came out, or you realized that this isn't what you want, or-"

"Would never happen. Ever. And don't you dare tell me that it could happen with me because it happened with that other guy. He is not me. I don't throw my pregnant daughter down flights of stairs, I don't set up love shacks to rape anyone, let alone Marty, and I don't fall out of love with you or our family."

Blair held up her hands in surrender. "All right. That's fair. But we're still..." she walked back across the room and took Todd's hands in hers. "We're not very far from where we were when Mitch Laurence locked you in the mausoleum, Todd. We love each other but that doesn't mean we can live with each other, and we can't just experiment with it. Not with five kids along for the ride. Not when Sam has just lost his daddy. Not when Jack is barely speaking to you and Dani doesn't even know you."

"Excuses."

"Maybe. But I'm not doing anything to myself or my kids until I'm sure. Tomas Delgado- that seemed like a good idea. I waited. And then it turned out that he was the one who took you away from us. Even if he thought he was _serving his country_ or _doing his job_, I could never, never be with a man who did that to us."

"So now you're comparing me to Tea's brother with the funny name?"

"No, I'm comparing me to the woman who almost did with him what I almost did with you. I'm not saying never. I'm saying not now."

Todd tried not to sigh out loud. A profession of love was real progress, even if it wasn't quite _let's get married and buy a new place and move there with all the kids and maybe even make one more, or at least try a lot._

"Not now. Okay, then. I'll go over to Viki's and call you later."

He leaned forward to give her a goodbye kiss, bypassing her lips for the area right over her heart. She gasped and stiffened.

Ordinarily, the last thing Todd did was wish pain on Blair. But this time, he thought it was only fair that she be as uncomfortable as he was.


	16. Chapter 16

Todd remained officially in residence at Viki's house along with half of Llanview, but returned to La Boulaie early every morning to cross-examine the security guards and see the children off to school. He didn't want to look at Clint Buchanan across the breakfast table anyway.

One morning, after Hope and her carpool had departed for preschool, Todd caught Blair by the hair as she was turning away from him to start her own day. "What do you want for your birthday?"

Blair snapped her fingers. "That's right. I meant to ask you about that. Starr got a car when she turned sixteen, and I know Jack would take it as me loving him less than I love Starr if he didn't get one, even with everything he's done in the past year."

"Of course he gets a car. Half the reason I went to the trouble of inheriting all that money was so my kids could be spoiled brats, and you can't be a spoiled brat if you don't get a car on your sixteenth birthday."

"Starr was joking the other day about you and Jack getting your permits together, but I was thinking that I could drive both of you down. They'll let you take the road test right after you pass the permit test since you're not a kid, and Jack can ride along and watch, which will help when he takes the test in a few months. Then you'll be able to drive him home, and that will give me enough time to pick up his new car and have it waiting for him out front."

"The only part of that plan I didn't like was the part where you said I wasn't a kid. No, wait, I also didn't like the part where I asked you about your birthday and you started talking about Jack's."

"I don't want anything."

"If that were true, that would be the saddest and most pathetic thing I ever heard. You're still trying to cheat at the most pathetic contest after all these years, aren't you?"

"I never cheated."

Todd scoffed. "Whatever. You can't win now, because my mother had me tortured for eight years and my family didn't even notice when she replaced me with my slower, less charming identical twin who didn't look anything like me."

"That doesn't exactly reflect very well on me, either. I married an imposter and then I tried to get over him by marrying a gold digging killer, and then I thought about getting over him with the man who took you away in the first place."

"You're right," said Todd seriously. "We can share the prize." He leaned in to brush his lips against her cheek and murmur in her ear. "I've got something we'd both enjoy that we could do to celebrate."

Blair nudged him away with her shoulder. "We talked about that. No."

"We never talked about taking Sam and Hope to the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia this weekend." He watched Blair's eyes flicker from confusion to amusement to exasperation. "I can't help it if you thought I meant something else because you're always thinking about other things."

"Yeah, well, you're lucky I wasn't too distracted to take a phone call from Justin Kiriakis this morning." Blair turned away, but not the way she usually turned away from him. This time, she was practically flouncing and demanding that he follow her.

He did follow her, of course. He didn't need an invitation for that.

"The lawyer who's handling the identity thing? Mickey Horton's friend?"

"That's right," Blair said blithely, as if this wouldn't interest Todd at all.

"What did he say?" Todd demanded.

Blair made a dismissive gesture. "Something about the judge wanting the court date moved up if everyone was amenable. Apparently the judge really wants this off his docket, and when Justin said he'd be right out from Chicago, it was hard for anyone else to object. Not that anyone wanted to. Tea's looking for a fight, the sooner the better."

"Delgado knows who I am."

"Yes, she does. Justin thinks she's not even going to argue that. She's going to try to argue that Victor Lord would have left that trust equally to both of his sons if he'd known about you both, so half of Victor Junior's assets should go to you because they were yours to begin with and the other half should go to Victor Junior's heirs. But since the mother of Victor Junior's only biological child doesn't agree with that…" Blair gestured at herself, "We should be all right."

Todd liked that they were we.

"When is this happening?"

"This afternoon. Two o'clock." Blair sipped her coffee. Todd took it out of her hand and downed it in one gulp. "You might want to go back to Viki's and get ready."

"No." Todd poured a fresh cup of coffee to replace the one he'd drunk and handed it back to Blair. "The first time I proved that that money was mine—all that stuff about birthday presents and rheumatic fever—you were right there with me. I want to walk into court today with you beside me again."

"I'll pick you up at one," Blair whispered. Then, suddenly, she threw her arms around Todd's neck and hugged him hard.

* * *

The hearing was anticlimactic. Tina made herself useful for once by establishing that Victor Lord was quite capable of knowing he had fathered a child and providing that child with no inheritance. Todd was so grateful that he decided to go a whole day without reminding Tina how stupid her theory about Blair and Cord had been.

Todd walked into the courtroom as a legal non-entity and out as Todd Manning, media tycoon.

After shaking Justin's hand, he reached for Blair's and led her out of the courthouse. "Logan's still has that big toy department, right?"

Blair nodded. Logan's wasn't far from the courthouse, and they headed straight for its top floor. A few reporters followed them. "I'm only going to speak to those of you I employ, and those of you I employ will be fired by five o'clock if you don't go away now," Todd advised them. They obeyed, and Todd pulled Blair past the rows of action figures and Barbie dolls to an empty corner stacked high with boxed bicycles and scooters that would be no fun to play with until some parent took them home and put them together.

"I know what you're doing, Todd," Blair said quietly. "You're recreating what we did twenty years ago. After we got your money, we came straight here and bought toys that we'd wanted as kids and we couldn't have."

"I'm glad you haven't forgotten," said Todd just as quietly. "But I'm not recreating it. I just wanted to be here, where it happened. Where we liked each other more than we knew and where we were having fun just because we could. Where we were starting out together as Mr. and Mrs. Mogul."

"It's a good memory."

"And I didn't have a lot of time to plan. I just found out that this was happening today," Todd admitted. "But I wasn't going to wait. I waited eight years and I don't feel like wasting any more time."

"Didn't have a lot of time to plan what?"

Todd kissed Blair on her cheek, took both of her hands in his, and dropped to his knees. "I want you to be my wife again. Officially."

Blair started to say something. Todd interrupted her. "I'm down on my knees and you're going to let me finish. I didn't ask you sooner because I didn't have a name or an identity or anything to give you other than myself, which, let's face it, is always a raw deal even though it works for you. The first time I saw you after I escaped from Irene, you were holding our wedding picture and telling our daughter that I was the love of your life. I know that you know as well as I do that it will always come back to you and me. I don't want to fight that. I just want to be with you. I know you probably aren't going to say yes today, but I had to ask. And it's only fair that you know that I will never stop trying to put us back together."

He reached into his pocket and removed an engagement ring. "Well?"

"Where did you get a diamond ring?" Blair asked.

"It's rude to ask questions in the middle of a marriage proposal."

Blair tugged on Todd's hands to get him off of his knees. Instead of letting himself be pulled up, Todd flicked his wrists and brought Blair down to the ground with him.

"You know I can't marry you," Blair said when they were both hidden from the world by the boxes of toys.

"I know that you can. You have, three separate times. The first time was in Florida, then the time with the gold balloons, then the time when Jack was a baby."

"What a delicate way of putting it. _When Jack was a baby_."

"When Jack was a baby and I lied about him being dead and tricked you into adopting your own son. It was horrible and awful and I can never truly make it up to you or to him. But you forgave me, and I think Jack is starting to understand. He was ready to listen when we spent that night in jail. He hasn't called me Scarface once since then."

"He doesn't call you anything else, either," said Blair wryly. For the past few weeks, Jack had declined to address Todd as anything but _hey, you_. It was a vast improvement.

"He did one time." Todd's chest exploded with warmth at the secret he hadn't shared with Blair yet. He had enjoyed having something that was just his and Jack's. "When we jumped out of that warehouse and we hit the water, he yelled for me and he called me 'Dad.' He was scared to death, that's the only reason he did it, but he did." Todd couldn't keep the stupid smile off of his face.

"That's wonderful! So he really is coming along!" Blair nestled closer to Todd and kissed his cheek. Todd turned his head so that their lips were almost touching.

Blair hesitated and pulled back.

"It's getting better," Todd agreed, not acknowledging what had almost happened. "So you can't use him as an excuse for us not to be together. None of the other kids, either."

"Sam just lost his father," said Blair defensively.

"Not like you were married to the guy. You didn't even like him. I'm not even sure Sam liked him."

"Jack did."

"Even though he was a horrible parent. All the more reason you and I need to be able to double team Jack all the time. I know what you think. You think Jack is like me. You think that's why he tortured that drippy little kid like I tortured Marty. If everything bad in Jack comes from me, who better to be there showing him how to control it than me?"

Blair didn't deny it. Todd knew that Blair knew the worst of him and loved him anyway, but it still hurt to hear her blame him for something that had happened when he had been locked up.

It didn't matter, though. Blair was going to hurt his feelings because they were both human. He wasn't going to overreact and let that tear them apart any longer.

"You're Jack's father whether we're together or not," Blair was saying. "When you stand beside Jack, I'll stand beside you."

Todd held the ring out to her on an open palm. "I want you beside me all the time."

"I want to know where you got the ring."

Todd didn't move his hand. The longer Blair looked at it without repeating her refusal, the better. "Viki opened her safe when she was getting ready to go to some fundraiser. She wanted a necklace or something. Wasn't hard to steal a ring. I don't know whose it was. I meant it more as a placeholder. I was thinking, when we get married again—and we both know we're getting married again even if you won't say yes now—I'd really like it if you made the rings. Remember the chain you gave me for the key Peter Manning gave me that was supposed to prove I was a Lord? The friendship ring that ended up being my wedding band because it was the only thing we had? I know it's tacky to tell a woman to design her own engagement ring, but you don't seem to be too crazy about the stolen one." He made a face. "Not like Viki wouldn't have given it to me if I asked."

Blair closed Todd's hand into a fist around the ring. "Give that back. I'm pretty sure that was Jessica's ring when she married Nash—Bree's father. You don't think it would have been a nasty shock for her to see me wearing it?"

"So you'll design the wedding set? Good." Before Blair could correct him, he gave her another kiss and scrambled to his feet. "I have to go over to the Sun and write the story of my triumphant return and maybe fire some people."

He left her there, hoping that she half-thought that they would be getting married again soon and liked the idea.

* * *

The long afternoon and evening at the Sun was exhilarating for Todd. The technology involved in putting out a daily newspaper had changed greatly, but the concepts hadn't. Briggs was still in charge, and his wasn't the only familiar face. Everyone relented quickly to his demand that the first two pages of the next day's edition be cleared for his editorial. He had written most of it in his head during his long weeks of identityless limbo.

If Blair had said yes, and if the imposter hadn't done such a bad job redecorating his office, everything would have been perfect.

He didn't call for a car to take him back to Llanfair until the early hours of the morning. He expected the house to be quiet and free from people he didn't want to talk to for once, but he heard his sisters' voices as soon as he opened the door.

"… I didn't mean to. I was just so excited. So happy!"

"I know, Tina. But in the future—"

"It won't happen in the future. This will be the last time. I won't ever mess it up again."

Todd was about to call out that he doubted that, but then remembered that he had more than twelve hours left of his self-imposed Be Nice To Tina Time. He settled for asking what was going on.

Tina flung herself across the room at Todd and hugged him. "Thank you so much! It's really because of you!"

Todd put a perfunctory arm around Tina's shoulders and then let it drop again. He shot Viki a baffled look over Tina's shoulder. Viki smiled but offered no explanation.

"What's going on?" he asked Tina, since Viki had decided not to be helpful.

Tina pulled away from him and delightedly shoved her hand in his face. "Cord and I are going to get remarried."

The bottom dropped out of Todd's stomach. He had gotten his name and his newspaper back, but Tina had gotten something even better. He hastily threw out his resolution to be nice to her. Their mother hadn't stolen eight years from her life. "What does that have to do with me?" he asked, not bothering with congratulations.

"Cord was impressed by how generous and selfless I was when I explained to the judge that our father picked and chose who he acknowledged. And you know what? For the first time in my life, I don't care. I don't care if Victor Lord didn't think I was good enough to be his daughter. All I care about is knowing I'll be with Cord for the rest of our lives."

"How nauseating," said Todd. He turned away from Tina and handed Viki the ring Blair hadn't taken. "I stole this out of your safe. Blair said I had to give it back."

"Why would you steal from Viki?" asked Tina, outraged as if she could not contemplate such a thing. "She'd give you anything you asked for."

"I was afraid it would come with a lecture."

"There is that," Tina admitted.

Viki shook her head at both of them, then sighed deeply. "All right, Todd. Why would you steal the engagement ring Jessie's late husband gave to her?"

"So Blair was right?" Todd asked. "Is that normal, for women to look at a ring maybe once and then know it forever? Blair can't have seen that ring that many times when Jessica was wearing it."

"Blair used to have jewelry business. I imagine she pays attention to those details."

"I know that!" Todd snapped. He'd used that in his proposal that afternoon, after all. He didn't need Viki to tell him about Blair, and he was furious that she'd he'd managed to go from an incredible high to an incredible low. He had to get away from Viki and Tina. "You have your ring and you have Jessica's ring. Goodnight."

He stalked back to his bedroom, pleased that at least Tina wasn't bubbling with excitement any longer.

It wasn't ten minutes later that Viki knocked on the door. He knew it was Viki before she came in, because even Viki's knock was aristocratic.

"All right, Todd," Viki began without preamble. "You have my attention. Why would I give you a lecture if I knew you wanted an engagement ring?"

"Because you don't think I should marry Blair again."

"I think it might be nice if the two of you got to know each other again before you considered a step of that magnitude."

"But you don't think that about Tina and Cord?"

"It doesn't matter what I think about Tina and Cord. They're adults and they made their decision together. Neither one of them spent eight years in a very traumatic situation, either."

"Why do people hold that against me? I wasn't on vacation, Viki! I was getting starved and beaten and interrogated and shocked—"

Viki made a strangled noise that was so unlike Viki that Todd interrupted himself with a spasm of guilt.

"I know who I am and what I want," Todd completed lamely. "Eight years with Irene didn't change that."

"I think you're right. I think maybe none of us have given you enough credit for how very well you're functioning."

"I thought about her every day when we were apart," Todd said. "It's a very difficult thing to miss a woman. And I was terrified that I had been forgotten."

"I can't speak for Blair, but, you know, things change."

"And then I saw her at the movie premiere and I kissed her and I knew right away that she remembered. She remembered. She's the one. And today, even though she admits that she remembers, even though she says she loves me—"

"She says she loves you?"

"Is that so surprising?"

"No, but I would think that that would make you happy."

"It does." Todd sighed and looked at Jessica's ring, which Viki still held in her hand. "But everything was stolen from me and I want it all back. I want it back yesterday. My name, my money, my paper, my children, and especially Blair."

"You and Blair weren't together when you disappeared."

"Tina and Cord weren't together until five minutes ago. And Tina was the idiot that thought Cord and Blair had something going on, not me. Well, a little bit me, but it was Tina's fault."

Viki shook her head. "I really do not care, Todd. You are not six years old and I am not your mother."

"Well, yes, if you were my mother you'd have my arms shackled down to that chair and a team of interrogators working on me for days at a time."

Viki paled again and looked older than Todd had ever seen her look. "I'm sorry," he told her. "I don't know what's going on today."

"Maybe you're just overwhelmed. You have every right to be. We all do. As far as I can tell, you've been uncharacteristically patient with Blair. Perhaps you have to keep doing that."

When he didn't answer, she told him goodnight and left him alone.

"I don't have to like it," he told the empty room.


	17. Chapter 17

Jack's birthday was more or less all right, which was the best he could have expected. He passed the test to get a learner's permit and returned home to a new SUV that would hold half the starters on the soccer team plus their gear.

It was nice to get a car the way Starr had. Starr had also had a huge party at a nightclub attended by the whole school and thrown by her friends, but Jack hadn't had any friends since the death of Gigi Morasco.

He also celebrated turning sixteen with a sentence of 500 hours of community service, much of it to be served with Starr and Todd. The judge has obviously figured that the punishment would be that much worse if Jack had to spend it with his long-lost father and his perfect sister. But it was better than juvie. Brad was about to get out—the judge had held that Brad warranted a stricter sentence because the death had taken place on his family's property and because Brad had stopped Jack from backing out at the last minute— and his parents were putting him straight into boarding school.

He went outside to wash his perfectly clean car on an unusually warm October Saturday, just because he could. When another car pulled up close behind him, the sponge fell nervously from his hands. He couldn't calm his racing heart even after he saw the guard step out of the shadows near the front of the house.

After a moment, it became clear that car wasn't driven by Irene, come to throw him in the trunk and threaten to cut out his heart.

It was worse.

It was Rex and Shane.

He saw the unmitigated hate in their bearing and wanted to call for the guard to come closer; instead, he gestured that the guard should step back. The guard obeyed, but not before Rex noticed him.

Rex crossed his arms and jerked his head at the guard, and then at Jack. "Must suck to be afraid all the time. Knowing there's someone out there making it their life's mission to hurt you any way they can. And you just lost one of your parents on top of it. I bet you feel really sorry for yourself. Lucky your family can afford someone to protect you so you don't end up dying on a floor in an empty building somewhere."

Jack didn't say anything. He wished Victor weren't dead. Victor would know what to do.

"Dad, you promised not to say anything," Shane admonished. For the briefest fraction of a second, Jack caught Shane's eye. That was all it took for Jack to imagine some alternate reality where they were friends and it was normal for them to look at each other and think _parents can be so embarrassing._

This wasn't that reality.

"What are you doing here, Shane?" Jack asked. It still felt unnatural to call him anything but Wheezy.

Shane's head was high and his voice was clear. Jack would have had respect for him if it hadn't been for the way Rex was hovering in the background, every so often jerking toward Jack like he was about to finish the beating his hired thugs had begun months ago at Capricorn. "I came to say goodbye."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to art school in London."

"It's a really great school. Very selective. They hardly let anyone in." Rex injected. "Shane's mother sent in the application right before you killed her."

"Dad!" said Shane. Rex pressed his lips together and turned away, kicking over Jack's bucket of soapy water in the process.

"I'm sorry," said Jack. "About your mom. I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

"Then why did you do it?"

"It was an accident. I didn't know there was carbon monoxide in that basement."

"What about the rest?"

"What rest?"

"Taking my clothes and putting the video on MyFace. Making me look like I stole money. Getting everyone to call me Wheezy." Jack honestly wanted to give Shane an answer, but before he could formulate one, Shane changed his mind. "Forget about it. I don't care. That's your problem, not mine."

"Congratulations on art school," Jack said woodenly.

Shane shrugged. "I just wanted to see you one more time before I forgot about you so that you know you didn't destroy me. All you did was murder an innocent woman. Oh, and I wanted to tell you I talked to John McBain. You were right. I was the one who hit you outside your uncle's house that night. I thought about killing you, but I didn't. I'm not like you."

Jack wanted to repeat that he'd never planned to kill anyone, but he knew that the words would fall into the air unheard. Shane had made up his mind. Jack might as well try to get an answer to something answerable. "Did you see anyone else that night?"

"Yeah. I told McBain. Just out of the corner of my eye I saw someone in a yellow raincoat. Their hood blew off and I saw blond hair. That's it. I didn't see a face. But, you know what? I really do hope that you get justice and you find out who did it. Knowing someone is walking around free, not paying for it at all, that's the worst."

And with that, Shane and Rex left.

Jack rinsed off his car and went back inside, where his mother seemed to be waiting for him.

"Was that Rex and Shane outside with you?" Blair asked without preamble.

Jack's Adam's apple threatened to choke him. "Yes," he rasped. "They're moving to London."

"Viki called and told me that. Clint Buchanan gave Rex all of his assets to thank him for Gigi's heart, but when Rex saw that acceptance letter to the art school he gave everything back. Clint gave them just enough to set them up with a new life there."

"Whatever."

"How do you feel about that?"

Jack wasn't in the mood for a pop quiz. "I guess it was nice of Clint Buchanan to help them out?" _Especially after they extorted his family's whole fortune for an organ donation, but that's okay because Morascos can do no wrong.  
_  
"Yes, it was. But that's not what I mean. Jack," and Blair put her hand on his shoulder like she had when he was a small boy. "For a lot of months you focused all of your time and energy on Shane, and it didn't work out very well for either of you. What will it be like when he's gone?"

"I don't know, he just left," grumbled Jack. "I guess people will blame me for running him out of town, but that won't be any worse than them blaming me for killing his mother. And yeah, I know I did do that. I didn't mean to, but that doesn't make a difference."

"It does to me. It does to your family."

"Whatever."

"What did Shane say to you?"

Jack suddenly had too many answers instead of not enough. The first one that came out of his mouth was, "He asked me why I bullied him and then he said that he didn't care because that was my problem, not his."

Blair gently guided Jack over to La Boulaie's grand staircase. They sat together on the bottom steps. "Why did you pick Shane?" she asked like it was something she had been dying to ask for months.

"I didn't like him," Jack said in a shaky, guilty rush. "I didn't like him and I still don't like him, as much as you're allowed to not like someone you did terrible things to."

"Why?"

"He was always… he was always such a victim. It was like, everyone was always saying 'be nice to Shane because such bad things happen to him. He has cancer. He has asthma. He thought his father was dead. He thought his father was someone else. His parents broke up. Poor, poor Shane.' No one would ever say something like that about me. No matter how many times we thought we lost you or Victor or no matter how bad the fighting got. Not when I found out what happened when I was born and everyone at school made fun of me. No one ever said 'poor Jack.' Maybe 'poor Starr, she got pregnant through her own damn choice and it ripped up her family.' Or 'poor Sam, he has to have a new family now because Rex faked his death certificate, not that Rex could ever do anything wrong because he's a saint like his son, never mind that Sam's brother and sister held a funeral for him.' You know how sometimes you call Cole's mom Marty the Martyr?"

"I shouldn't do that," said Blair, but she didn't deny it.

"That's how I feel about Shane. He was always being treated like he was made of glass. The same things could happen to me and everyone would just expect me to keep moving. No one would notice me. One day I looked at him and I just got tired of it."

Saying it out loud left Jack more exhausted than he'd been since the night he'd come home from jail. "Are we done?" he asked. "I have homework." He had no intention of doing homework, but it was the only excuse that might get his mother to leave him alone.

"Yeah," said Blair vaguely. "Go ahead."

* * *

Blair poured herself a drink and was about to call Christian to tell him she wanted to sing at Capricorn that night—that was the fastest, easiest way to separate herself from her family when the drama got to be too much— but her hand froze on the phone. Rather than scrolling down the Christian's name, her finger hovered over Todd's entry for a long moment.

She finished the drink, tapped Todd's name before she could change her mind, and staggered into Dorian's room.

As soon as Todd had regained control of his assets, a jeweler's bench had appeared in Dorian's room. The idea of Dorian coming home and finding out how it had come to be there amused Blair, so she hadn't had the bench moved, let alone sent back.

More days than not, she found herself drawn to the bench and handling the tools and materials that had come with it.

She collapsed onto the chair just as Todd answered.

"Everything all right?"

"No," she said, not quite registering his sharp intake of breath.

"What happened? Where are you? Is it Irene? Did you see her?"

"No." She shook her head to remove the fuzzy taste of alcohol from her mouth. "No, everything is fine. I just wanted to talk to you."

He didn't sound reassured. "Blair, what the hell happened?"

She picked up the sketch she'd made of a ring: interwoven threads of silver and gold, masculine despite the delicate details. "Did Viki tell you that Rex and his son Shane are moving to London?"

"That sounds like great news. Let some other country deal with them."

"They came over to say goodbye to Jack."

Todd's snarl warmed Blair's heart. "If they touched one hair on Jack's juvenile delinquent head—"

"They didn't. All they did was talk. I think they upset Jack, but maybe in the way he needs to be upset, you know? Jack told me—he told me why out of every kid in that Godforsaken school he targeted Shane Morasco. He said he was tired of Shane reveling in his own victimhood, letting it define him, setting himself up as more delicate than anyone else so anyone who hurt him would have to grovel for the rest of his life. Then he said it was like when I call Marty a martyr. Todd," Blair fought the urge to slide onto the floor and curl herself into a ball, "I know where he was coming from. He wasn't out there being a bully because of how Victor treated him or because he has that Lord DNA. He was acting the way he was acting because he's like me."

"I'm on my way over."

There was nothing in Todd's voice to make Blair suspect that he was on his way over to gloat, but she thrilled with fear anyway. "No! You're just getting back into the swing of things at the Sun."

"Much as it pains me to admit this, the Sun did fine without me for eight years."

"If you turn up right now, Jack will know we were talking about him and that might make him more self-conscious about talking to me next time," Blair tried.

"That's probably true," Todd conceded, and Blair let out a breath of relief. She couldn't look Todd in the face and know that while he had been subjected to daily beatings, she had been failing their children in every conceivable way. Her eyes filled with tears, and since no one was around to see, she let them fall down her cheeks. She wished that she had another drink, but she hadn't had the foresight to bring the bottle with her.

"Are you crying?" Todd asked.

"Of course not."

"Jack's going to be fine. Do you know how I know that?" He didn't wait for an answer. "He has you in him. He always has. Your heart, your stubbornness, your good looks, your love. I worried about having a girl because I thought I'd hurt her like Victor hurt Viki. Then I worried about having a boy because I thought he'd grow up to be like me. I still worry about that sometimes. But I know that, unlike Victor Lord, I chose the right mother for my children."

Blair didn't say anything.

"I love you, Blair."

"Love you, too," she managed before she ended the call.

It had been a long time since she'd worked with jewelry. The tools Todd had bought her were nicer than the ones she had had back then and fell easily into her hands.

She wasn't ready to call Todd back and demand that he marry her.

But her hands started to shape the ring without permission from her brain.

* * *

Most evenings, Todd tried to sleep in the vain hope that eventually he would be able to handle the night like a normal person. He didn't care so much about being normal as he cared about making sharing a bed with him a positive experience for Blair.

The day that Blair called him about Jack, he didn't even bother going to bed. He hung out in his assigned room until the more annoying of Viki's houseguests were out of the way and then crept downstairs to sprawl out on the couch (Viki wasn't there to tell him not to put his feet on it) and watch TV.

The appearance of television had improved vastly during his missing eight years. Flat screens had become ubiquitous as well as larger and more clear.

The content of television was still pretty much crap, but he had never held that against it. He was in this for distraction, not self-improvement.

He spent a few hours with a new-to-him game show that took place in a cab in New York City. He amused himself imaging what would have happened if the cash cab had picked up a young Starr.

Then he stumbled onto something more horrifying than anything Hitchcock had ever created. _Twintervention_ was a documentary of sorts about twins who couldn't stand to be apart. Even after one twin married, the other moved in with the newlyweds. Sometimes they all lived in a one-bedroom apartment.

Could this have happened to him if he'd known about Victor? Could they have been so close that he would have chosen Victor over Blair, so close that Victor's death would have destroyed him instead of making him mildly bitter that he hadn't pulled the trigger?

He stared at the screen, mesmerized.

"Uncle Todd?"

He jumped hard enough to overturn the cocktail table. His hands were raised to defend his body from the next blow before he realized that he wasn't in Irene's lair. He was in Viki's kitschy den and Jessica was looking at him with a baby in her arms and concern in her eyes.

Todd kicked the table back into place with his foot and sat down again, gesturing that Jessica should join him. She did, deftly shifting Ryder and his bottle into the space between them. Apparently Todd hadn't frightened Jessica too badly if she was willing to have him so close to her child. He wasn't sure if that made his niece kind or stupid.

"Have you seen this?" Todd asked, gesturing at the television. He wasn't going to discuss what had just happened.

Jessica rolled her eyes. "I've been meaning to program the TV to skip that channel. The whole point is to show us people we can feel superior to. It's trash."

"People say that about the Sun, too."

"That's different." Jessica grabbed the remote control and turned the television off.

"Do you ever think about what your life would have been like if you and Natalie had grown up together?"

"Only every day since I found out that she was my twin."

Todd sighed. He hadn't expected that the long-lost twin revelation was something that you got used to, but he wasn't pleased to hear Jessica confirm it. "Do you ever think about what it would be like if you liked each other? Not just tolerated each other sometimes because you're family?"

For a second, Jessica looked baffled. "You missed a lot while you were gone," she said quietly. "Natalie and I went through a lot together. We were a great team. I couldn't have loved her more or counted on her more if we'd grown up together. I felt as close to her as I did to anyone in the world. For real."

"And she just seduced your fiancé because you were so close?"

"They thought I wasn't coming back. They thought I'd finally lost my mind for good. They were grieving and they did something stupid that really hurt me."

"But you can't forgive them."

Jessica stroked Ryder's soft blond hair. "If it weren't for Liam, I think I could. But my fiancé and my twin sister having a son the exact same age as mine? That means that that one night is something we can never put in the past. It's something we'd deal with every single day. You think I'm wrong?"

"I think Brody doesn't deserve you."

"You don't have a problem with Blair having a son with your long lost twin brother, do you? It seems like you and Sam are really tight."

"Sam is a great kid." Todd smiled. His friendship with Sam was, ironically enough, the least complicated relationship in his world. "He should've been my son. Any child of Blair's should be a child of mine. And he will be, with Victor out of the way."

Jessica made a face.

"Don't pretend to be offended," Todd said. "You didn't like him anyway. I wouldn't have let Tess run wild stealing my granddaughter or even locking up your less charming twin. I would have taken care of you."

"I know that," Jessica said. "I know it's not enough to say it, but I'm so sorry about letting him take your name and your place."

"Not your fault," Todd grunted. "And at least you're sorry. I don't think Blair is."

Jessica stared at her perfectly manicured fingernails as they traced circles on Ryder's back. "Victor was harder on her than he was on me. Maybe she just can't bring herself to talk about it or think about it. I know how that feels."

"Maybe."

Ryder whimpered sleepily. "I think he's ready to go back upstairs," said Jessica. "Are you coming up too?"

Before Todd could answer, there was a popping noise and the power blinked out.


	18. Chapter 18

It somehow didn't surprise Starr that Hope—the child who slept through the constant drama of the Cramer-Manning household without incident—would awaken instantly in the absence of noise and light.

Just after 3:00 in the morning, Hope's terrified cries woke Starr and Starr found that they were in the midst of a blackout. She used her phone as flashlight and attempted to comfort Hope.

Hope wasn't old enough to notice that the phone wasn't good for much else. There was no signal.

Starr, though, was concerned enough to consider waking her own mother. No power meant no security system. No cell phone reception meant no way of calling for help.  
Then, with relief, Starr remembered that someone from Shaun's team had remained on duty ever since the last incident with Irene. She carried Hope downstairs with the intention of asking the guard when they had lost power.

There was a knock at the front door as she passed by. She heard a petrified scream before she realized it had been her own.

Hope burst into fresh tears.

"Starr, Hope, it's okay. It's me," said a voice on the other side of the door.

"Daddy?" whimpered Hope. Her tears stopped as suddenly as they had come, but her small body tensed with the promise of a tantrum if she didn't get what she thought was outside on the front step.

"You heard that, too?" Starr asked her daughter. She peeked through the window, even though every horror movie she had ever seen had taught her not to.

"Daddy!" Hope declared with more certainty. Sure enough, Cole, resplendent in a prisoner's jumpsuit, was waiting for them. Almost before Starr opened the door all the way, Hope had wrenched free of her grip and thrown herself into her father's arms.

Starr couldn't afford such unadulterated happiness. "What are you doing here?" she demanded as she hustled Hope and Cole into the living room and closed the door.

"Just give me a minute," murmured Cole as he pressed his face against Hope's blonde head.

Starr knew that being apart was agony for both Cole and Hope. She counted to 30 inwardly before she felt herself beginning to explode from anxiety and determined that 30 seconds was close enough to a minute.

"Did you break out of P-R-I-S-O-N?" she asked in the cheeriest possible voice. "If you did, they'll extend your S-E-N-T-E-N-C-E."

"I wasn't the one who planned it. There are hundreds of prisoners who escaped. I'm way down the list of people they're looking for." He tumbled Hope over and over in his arms. Her face was the picture of bliss. Looking at her made Starr feel like a raging bitch for what she was about to say. But Hope couldn't look at the big picture. That was her mother's job.

"So you need to get back there before they know you're gone." She pointed at the door.

Hope fixed Starr with a glare that Starr usually only saw in the mirror. "Daddy stay!" she said firmly, and gripped Cole's shirt with her fists.

Cole hugged Hope hard. "I'll never let you go."

"How can you promise her that?" Starr asked, trying again to make her voice as sweet as possible for Hope's sake.

"I didn't mean to ask you this way." Cole nailed Starr with a gaze that made half of her life flash before her eyes.

_The first time she'd seen Cole across a crowded hallway on her first day of high school._

Cole standing guard while she changed into his clothes in the bushes so she wouldn't have to go home wearing the beer-drenched clothing Brittany had ruined.

Cole spinning her in a circle at the Halloween dance and not liking her any less after Brittany put on a slide show featuring the Manning family's least attractive moments.

Cole's face flushed with cold as they snuck into bed together for the first time during a class trip to Llantano Mountain.

Cole jumping into a speeding car to try to save the life of a drug-addled, bullied classmate.

Cole singing opposite her in the school play.

The magical kiss in the rain at her first prom.

The candlelit night that they had conceived Hope.

The days on their own in Virginia Beach when they'd run away to have their baby and

Cole had raided their meager savings to buy her flowers and a stuffed frog.

Cole's steadfast desire to be a father.

A thousand times she had seen Cole hold Hope just like this. 

"Didn't mean to ask me what?" Starr asked even though she was sure she already knew.

"Come away with me. My mom needs me. I haven't seen my dad since before I met you. He's never even met Hope. They're somewhere safe. We can join them. Hope will finally have her whole family."

"My family is here. My dad just got back—"

"So how can you stop me from going to see my dad?"

"Yeah, Starr, how can you do that?" injected a new voice.

Starr, Cole, and Hope turned as one.

"You shouldn't leave the door unlocked when there's a prison break going on," Hannah O'Connor informed them.

Hannah wasn't alone. She had a gun firmly pressed to Sam's head.

* * *

It took Todd longer than he would have liked to make sure Jessica understood the gravity of the situation and that Llanfair was secure. He became furious at the way his niece had dragged her feet and downplayed the situation as he sped toward La Boulaie with the car radio informing him in progressively more frantic tones that hundreds of prisoners had escaped during the blackout. Among the prisoners was Mitch Laurence.

Jessica damn well better have registered how serious the situation was when she heard that.

At the edge of the driveway, Todd's headlights picked up the figure of the guard who was supposed to be on duty that night.

"What are you doing out here?" he demanded as the car squealed to a halt.

"Had to run a sweep of the grounds, make sure everything was secure with the power out and the alarms not working," he said. "My partner called in sick at the last minute—"

"Your partner called in crooked!" Todd snapped. "And you should have called in stupid." He grabbed the man by the scruff of his neck and half-threw him into the house. "Go upstairs, wake up my wife and kids, and keep them all together with you."

The man obeyed.

A gunshot resonated through the house.

The man hesitated.

"Go!" Todd shouted, and ran toward the gunshot himself.

He was confronted with a convict-boy he didn't know holding Hope while a convict-girl he didn't know held Sam and the gun. Starr was in between them, her pretty face alight with rage.

"Stay back," the girl said. "Next time, I won't miss. All that will be left of Sam will be his glasses."

"Don't bother with that, Hannah," the boy said, and something in his tone sent a burst of familiarity through Todd. He felt like he had when he'd first escaped Irene's prison: knowing he knew someone but not knowing how. "Let's go. We'll go meet up with my parents."

"You'll always want her!" the girl screamed, jabbing her chin at Starr. "As soon as the gates opened, you went to her."

"I went to Hope. I came to say goodbye to my daughter. I'm over Starr, and she's with James Ford—"

Todd and Cole realized together that Hannah wasn't buying this story. Todd reached for Sam and Cole flung himself at Starr just as the room exploded with noise for the second time.

Blair and Jack came crashing down the stairs, obviously barely awake, just as Todd carried Sam out of the living room. He fairly threw Sam at Blair before dashing back inside.

Hope was sitting on the couch and screaming.

Starr was holding the gun on Hannah.

Cole was lying on the floor, bleeding.

Todd took the gun from Starr and took over guard duty while Starr pressed a pillow  
against Cole's wound and tearfully promised that she would always love him. Todd heard Blair taking charge behind him—ordering the guard to radio for an ambulance and ordering Jack to take the younger children to Sam's room and stay there.

When the ambulance came, Todd asked Blair to mind their prisoner while he rode in the ambulance with Starr and Cole. Their guard might be incompetent, but Blair and the younger children were still safer at home with him than out in the wide world of escaped convicts.

* * *

Jack decided that the most impressive physical feat of his young life was no longer the time he had scored two goals in a varsity soccer game as a freshman or the time he had fought Irene's goons in the abandoned warehouse and then swum a mile in the freezing Llantano River. No, the hardest his mind and body had ever worked was the day he had to wrestle Sam and Hope up the stairs in a blackout while Hope screamed for Cole and Sam yelled that he wanted to help.

Jack sympathized with Sam. He hated to be removed from the action and he wanted to know what the hell was going on. But the way Blair had ordered him to take the kids upstairs had let him know in no uncertain terms that he was helping. He was protecting the babies of the family so his parents could take care of business without them underfoot.

He was on the team again.

Jack sat on Sam to keep him from running downstairs. (This probably wasn't what parenting books recommended, but Jack defied anyone to find a better solution under the circumstances. It wasn't as if Sam was just going to do as he was told.) At the same time, he hugged Hope as he told her over and over that she was safe and she would see her daddy soon. He had no fucking clue if that was true, but Hope's ear-splitting shrieks prevented him from thinking of anything else to say. For a child who was usually so quiet you could forget that she was in the house at all, Hope sure could yell when she wanted to.

He didn't realize that Blair had come into the room until Sam whined, "Mom! Jack's sitting on me and wouldn't let me help."

Jack moved and let Sam wriggle out from beneath him. "Jack was sitting on you because it was the only way to keep you from helping."

"You should sit on Hope to make her stop yelling," said Sam petulantly.

"She keeps it up, and I might try that," Jack told Blair, who laughed weakly and took Hope from his arms. Hope settled down almost as soon as Blair touched her, which kind of pissed Jack off even though he understood it. He wouldn't have objected to a hug from Blair, himself.

"What happened?" he asked.

Blair's eyes drifted between Sam and Hope. Jack understood that he would not get a full story in front of the babies, but he was anxious to hear something, anything, right away.

"I told you," said Sam with the complete knowledge of the world that could only come from being seven years old. "I went downstairs and that mean girl Hannah who hurt Starr was there, and she put a gun on my head and then Uncle Todd made me leave."

"That's about right," Blair told Jack. She smoothed Sam's hair with her free hand.

"I saved Aunt Dorian. I could have saved Starr," Sam continued.

"Starr is fine," Blair said to Jack. "So is your father. Hannah's first shot didn't hit anyone."

"She said it was a warning shot," Sam added. "I told you that, Jack. You never listen to me."

"Couldn't hear you over the way Hope was crying," Jack said, even though he had heard Sam perfectly and assumed he was making things up. Then he prompted Blair. "The second shot?"

"Cole took the bullet for Starr. He's alive and your father and Starr are taking him to the hospital. Hannah is on her way back to prison."

"How did she get out? How did _Cole_ get out?" Blair raised her eyebrows at Jack, and he knew he would not be hearing more details until later. "Never mind," he corrected himself. "Let's build a tent out of blankets and watch a DVD on the laptop inside the tent. Would you like that?"

Sam cheered. Even Hope looked slightly interested. Blair mouthed "thank you" to Jack over Hope's head, and Jack felt happier than he'd been in years.

* * *

Starr sang to Cole as the paramedics worked over his wound. The last time Todd had heard Starr sing, she had been a little girl belting out Jingle Bells in her elementary school's Christmas concert. Now she was singing an agonized song about love and loss to the young man who had fathered her own daughter and taken a bullet for her. She was singing the way Todd had sometimes imagined Blair singing to him as he was strapped into a chair after a beating at his captors' hands.

And Todd, who had once been the center of Starr's life, was unable to do anything to fix it.

The ambulance jerked to a halt and directed its sirens at whatever was in its path.

"Dad, what's going on?" asked Starr frantically as she clutched Cole's hand in both of hers. "Why aren't we moving?"

"I'm sure they'll get moving again soon," said Todd. Starr made a face. Todd didn't blame her. They both hated empty platitudes.

"He's stable," one of the paramedics assured. "Blood pressure is good, pulse is good."

When the ambulance doors opened as if of their own accord, Todd jumped forward, ready to defend his daughter and Marty's son with his life. However, it immediately became clear that their uninvited guests were not interested in Starr or Cole.

Todd stared up into the hated, knowing eyes of Baker. Baker's face was masked, but Todd would have known him anywhere.

With Starr's shriek ringing in his ears, Todd reflected that he never should have put off dealing with the purloined computer chip.


	19. Chapter 19

Choosing between Cole and her "father" had been the story of Starr's life in high school. Eventually, she had learned that she should always choose Cole. Nothing had ever come of choosing Victor but more pain, and no sacrifice had ever been enough for Victor. She had thought that this chapter in her life had been closed.

But here she was again, holding Cole's hand as he clung to the vestiges of consciousness and watching in horror as four masked men held Todd down and injected him with a severe-looking syringe. Four more men trained guns on Cole, Starr, and the paramedics.

"Take your man on to the hospital," one of the masked men said as they unceremoniously dumped Todd's prone body into a dark van. "We're done here." Starr's muscles tensed, ready to jump out of the ambulance and rip off one of those masks, guns or no, but Cole squeezed her hand just in time.

"Starr," he mumbled roughly.

"I'm here. I won't leave you," she soothed. Then she glanced at the paramedics. "Can you radio what just happened to the police?"

"Already done," the driver said. They were moving again, with no sirens but plenty of lights and speed.

"Tell them my father's name is Todd Manning. Tell them to get word to John McBain," Starr instructed as she entwined Cole's fingers with her own.

She didn't let go of Cole's hand until he was wheeled into the operating room. "I love you, Cole. I'll always love you," she told him. She meant it, too. He had taken a bullet for her. He was the father of her child. He had fundamentally altered the course of her life; he was half the reason she was no longer the scheming brat who would put piranhas in a man's bathwater if she didn't like him.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned into it, not really caring who was embracing her. It took her a moment to realize that it was James. She had barely seen him since Todd's return, she realized guiltily. She had fallen into her old pattern of being Todd's Shorty. Her mother and daughter and brothers needed her, too, and she had to squeeze in schoolwork somewhere. James had been lost in the shuffle.

"How did you know I'd be here, James? Is it on the news?" she asked.

"I haven't seen the news." There was something so odd in his voice that she looked hard at his face and saw that he had been crying.

"James? Did something happen?"

"It's Bobby." James' voice broke. "There was a prison break—you know that—and Mitch Laurence went after Jessica and Natalie. Bobby was trying to protect Jessica and—"

In Starr's head, the scene played out just at it had with Cole and Hannah. Mitch had raised his gun to the twins. Ford had jumped in front of Mitch, taking the bullet meant for Jessica.

Starr quickly reappraised her opinion of James' older brother. She had never forgiven Bobby Ford for what he had done to Langston and Markko, let alone what he'd done to Jessica and Brody. She didn't think much of the way he'd left James alone to face their father's wrath, either. She would never have done that to Jack and Sam when Victor was at his worst. But apparently the eldest Ford brother had hidden depths. He had sacrificed himself for Jessica and been as selfless as a person could be. He had started to make up for what had been, for all intents and purposes, rape.

"Mitch shot Ford?" Starr completed gently.

James sniffed. "No. There was a chandelier, and— and it fell— and Bobby didn't make it."

"Bobby got crushed to death by a falling chandelier?" Saying it out loud didn't make it any less ridiculous.

James nodded miserably.

Starr did a horrible thing.

She laughed.

It must have been the strain of seeing Cole, and his request that she leave her family, and seeing Hannah, and Sam being held at gunpoint, and nearly being shot herself, and watching Cole bleed, and knowing Hope had seen everything, and watching Todd be kidnapped by men she knew meant to torture him. It wasn't that she thought it was funny that her boyfriend's piece of shit brother had died.

But when she started laughing, she couldn't stop any more than Hope could have stopped screaming when Cole had crumbled to the ground.

James pushed her away. She stumbled and nearly fell, but staggered after James, choking her laughs down and dizzy from oxygen deprivation. Tears streamed down her face.

She followed James to another waiting area and saw him crying on Jessica's shoulder while Brody stood guard nearby. Brody caught her eye and led her away from Jessica and James. "He told you about Ford?"

Starr nodded. She felt oddly comforted that Brody didn't appear to be broken up over Ford's death. The fleeting sense of peace helped her to regain her composure. "Cole—" she began, because Brody was a cop and might be able to help. "No, my dad. Do you know if John McBain knows—do the police know what happened to my dad? Did the paramedics call it in like they said?"

"I heard your dad's name on the radio," Brody confirmed. "John was caught up in the thing with Mitch Laurence. He and Natalie stayed there to make sure Laurence was dead. He might not know that Irene made her move." He snapped into cop-mode, and Starr loved him for it. She was going to encourage Jessica to forgive Brody, regardless of Liam's and Ryder's DNA.

"Look, whatever they used to jam the cell phone signals stopped working," Brody continued. "Check in with your mom, and I'll call John."

Starr obeyed.

* * *

"Hi, Blair," said John with more mirth in his voice than he had any business having. The man had no discernible sense of humor half the time, but he was choosing to laugh during a prison break that might kill the people she loved most in the world.

"What are you going to do about Irene?" she asked without preamble.

"We don't know that it was Irene who took Todd."

"Are you pretending that you're stupid, or are you pretending that I'm stupid?"

"Give me a break, Blair. I know you're worried, but the whole town is going to hell. I just watched two people die."

"Who?" Blair's pulse sped up. "Robert Ford? Starr told me about him."

"And then Natalie shot Mitch Laurence to death."

"Good for Natalie. Maybe I'll call her to ask about Irene."

John ignored her. "A camera got a glimpse of that van heading south. Odds are they're going to the same region of the country where the other stronghold was. Lovett's meeting me at the airport. We're going back to Louisiana. We'll start there. We'll see if anything's changed, if there's anything we can track."

Blair nodded firmly to herself. "All right. I'm coming with you."

"You can do more to help if you stay here with your children."

"If I hadn't stopped looking eight years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess now. I'm not making the same mistake again."

"You can't come with us. It's too dangerous and you'd be in the way," said John bluntly.

"I'll fly to Louisiana myself. I'll probably be in more danger and more likely to get in the way if you don't let me come with you." Blair knew from long, painful experience that this was the only argument that worked on John.

She also knew from long, painful experience that John McBain, while an indulgent friend and a brilliant detective, would forfeit his professional ethics for personal reasons. John's sister-in-law Marcie never would have brought Sam home after kidnapping him if John had had his way.

Then there was the Margaret Cochran fiasco. She had begged and pleaded for help, and none had been forthcoming. It was a miracle that she and Victor and Starr and Jack had all survived.

The last thing Blair was going to do was repeat that mistake. She might not be able to blast her way into Irene's lair single-handed, but she could damn well supervise while John and Brody did it.

John grunted and hung up. Blair interpreted that as acceptance.

She packed a bag in record time while she mulled over what she could possibly say to Hope and Sam to explain why she was leaving them in the middle of what felt like a war zone.

There was no question of what she would say to Jack, she determined with some relief. It would be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Jack had Hope and Sam engrossed in _The Lion King_—Blair couldn't help but think how apt that choice was—in their makeshift blanket tent, so the younger children barely noticed when Blair gestured that Jack should step into the hall with her.

"What's going on, Mom?" Jack hissed before she could open her mouth. "The phones are back? That was Starr? How's Cole?"

"Cole is fine," Blair whispered back. "But we're all a little safer because your cousin Natalie seems to have permanently rid the world of Mitch Laurence."

"Good for her."

"My thoughts exactly. It wasn't before Robert Ford died in the confrontation, though. That's all I know about the big picture of the prison break."

By now, Jack had spotted Blair's bag. "You're going to the hospital to be with Starr?"

"I wish it were that easy. No. There was an incident on the way to the hospital. Cole is fine. Starr is fine."

Jack's jaw tightened as he realized who wasn't fine. "And… him?"

"Irene's men broke into the ambulance and took your father. John and Brody are going to track them, and I'm going along." She put her hand over Jack's mouth to forestall an argument. "I know it sucks and I know that what I'm asking you to do is completely unfair. We haven't had a lot of trust lately, you and I. But now we have to trust each other completely. There's no one else in the world I'd be all right with staying with Sam and Hope. Just you, Jack." She traced her hand down his face.

Jack squirmed away from the contact, but nodded shakily. "I won't let anything happen to them."

"Do whatever you have to to make it easy on yourself. No rules. Bribe them, feed them junk, break things. No rules except keep your sister in the loop and be in the right number of pieces when I bring your father home."

"Okay." Then, seeming to change his mind, Jack hugged Blair hard. "Be careful."

"You, too."

"Call Sam out here. Tell him I'm in charge, but don't tell Hope you're going. She'll start screaming again."

"Got it," Blair agreed, and she settled for caressing her granddaughter's hair on the way out the door as her younger son stared at the cartoon and her older son followed her movements with worried eyes.

* * *

Starr's body pulsed with renewed strength as she paced back and forth between the bereavement area where Jessica sat with James and the surgical waiting room. It wasn't the best position to be in, but she could handle it. She knew that Blair would take care of Todd and Jack would take care of Sam and Hope so she could take care of Cole and James. She was a Manning. She would multitask.

She wanted to be beside Blair and Hope and the boys, but Cole didn't have anyone else and Cole was Hope's father.

When she checked in on James for the third time, Nate and Inez were there. Nate made a move like he might hug Starr, but James shook his head at his surviving brother.

"Twinkle, I need a clean break, all right?" James said. Starr was confused for a moment. James was talking as if they had broken up, but he didn't know that she had considered running away with Cole earlier that night. He didn't know, so he couldn't dump her for it.

"What do you mean?"

"I heard you telling Cole that you'll always love him. He's the one you want to be with, so he's the one you need to be with."

"Cole had just been shot protecting me, and he's my daughter's father. I love him, but I love you, too, and I want to be with you." She wasn't even sure that that was true, but at least if she stayed with James she wouldn't have to leave her whole family behind. Her mother liked James and her father didn't seem to care very much, and James' own family was in Llanview, too. Besides, she couldn't very well let a man break up with her just after his brother's gruesome death. He was in shock. He needed her support.

"That's not enough," James said. "It's especially not enough with Bobby lying dead—" James' voice broke.

"I didn't mean to laugh!" Starr became acutely aware of her audience as Nate and Inez stepped forward with matching glares on their faces. "I'm so sorry Bobby's dead, and I want to be here for you."

"You've been phasing me out for months. Ever since your dad came home. You used to say that you didn't need to go home to Hope, that she didn't need you because your family takes care of her. Now you always say that you have to be with her, and she's your daughter so I can't accuse you of using her as an excuse. You don't want to be with me, and I don't want to think about that. I just want to think about Bobby. So if you want to help me, please leave."

He couldn't have been any more clear.

"Okay," Starr said. She hugged James one last time. He didn't hug her back.

She pushed her feelings about James aside and returned to the waiting room just as a nurse emerged from the surgical theater. "Cole Thornhart?" she asked worriedly.

"He's in recovery and you can go see him."

Starr tossed her thanks over her shoulder as she rushed to Cole's side.

She found Cole propped up on his pillows and taking small sips of a paper cup of water. An armed guard stood nearby, watching him with, Starr thought, seriousness but fondness too.

"How are you feeling?" Starr asked.

"Better." Cole cut his eyes to the guard, who was making himself as unobtrusive as possible. "Well enough that they're taking me right back to Statesville."

"No!" Starr's shriek bounced off the hard walls and beeping monitors. Cole winced.

"Like you said when you first saw me, running was a bad idea. I'm glad I got to spend time with Hope that wasn't in a visiting room. I'm glad I was there to protect you when Hannah came after you. But now… There's nothing we can do."

Schemes flitted through Starr's mind. They could fool this guard, who was only one man and who was obviously sympathetic to Cole. All of Pennsylvania was in chaos after the blackout and the prison break. They could run. They could be together like they had been in high school.

Except they couldn't. They had never gotten very far when they'd tried to run away in the past, and their journeys had always ended with Victor trying to kill Cole. The police would chase Cole as hard as Victor had. Cole would be an escaped convict. She might end up back in jail where she wouldn't be able to do anyone any good. If by some stroke of luck they did escape, she would never be able to go home to Blair or the boys, or her aunts and cousins and friends and Dani, and what if Todd came home again to find her gone?

Cole seemed to read her thoughts as she came to her miserable conclusion.

"Hope and I will come see you as often as we can. Maybe—maybe we should get married like we almost did last time? We might be able to visit more if we were husband and wife."

"Starr, you're with James. You can't put your life or Hope's life on hold because of me."

"That's not what you said—" She stopped herself just in time to keep from telling the guard that Cole had planned to leave the country and never return. "Anyway, James and I broke up. He knows that I love you."

"I love you too, Starr. But we aren't together and we certainly aren't getting married. You need to be with someone you can be with every day. You don't even know what I'm like now that I've been in prison for a year."

And then Cole threw her out of his hospital room.

Starr almost stumbled into Jessica as she left.

"How's Cole?" Jessica asked with a tired hug.

"He'll be fine." Starr leaned into whatever support Jessica could give her. She wanted Todd and Blair, but that was not an option. She wanted Cole and James, but that wasn't an option either. "You know, I just got dumped by James and by Cole, and that isn't even in the top five worst things that have happened today."

"Brody told me about Uncle Todd." Jessica led Starr over to a bench and sat her down.

"You saw the whole thing?"

"Yeah. We were trying to figure out why the ambulance stopped, and then the doors opened—I thought someone was after Cole—but there were eight of them and they took Dad. After they threw him into the van, they let us go."

"Starr." Jessica placed a gentle hand on her younger cousin's arm. "I don't want to push you, but you know that sometimes every minute makes you more likely to forget. When I interview someone the day something happens instead of the day after, it's like night and day. The cops are stretched to their breaking point and they probably won't be ready to take your statement any time soon, so can you try to remember the details?"

"I don't think there are any. There were four fighting Dad and four more holding guns on us. They were wearing masks."

"What did Uncle Todd say?"

Starr thought hard. "I don't think he said anything. There were four of them on him, and it happened so fast, and they drugged him so he was unconscious before they threw him in the van…" Starr buried her face in her hands.

Jessica rubbed Starr's back. "I'm sorry, Starr. I'm sorry. But did Uncle Todd look at them like he knew them?"

"I don't know. They were Irene's people. Who else could they have been?"

"Did he look at you? Did he try to tell you anything?"

"Oh, God," Starr groaned. "It seems like he would try to send me a message, doesn't it? And I missed it because I was worried about Cole. I was going to jump out of the ambulance after them, and then Cole squeezed my hand and said my name and I looked at him. What if I missed something?"

"I'll send Cole a thank you note for keeping you from jumping out of the ambulance and getting yourself killed," said Jessica dryly. "Your dad wouldn't have wanted you to do that."

"But he would have found a way to tell me something, and I wasn't listening. Even when he went to look for Jack the last time Irene came after us—"

Something inside Starr exploded with hope. She bounded to her feet, pulling Jessica with her, and hugged her cousin hard. "When Dad went after Jack, he told me that I was a cat for Halloween one year when he was gone. That has to be some kind of message, right? Something I wasn't supposed to be able to figure out right away, but that I'd get if things went wrong?"

"I don't know, Starr. Maybe."

But Starr was sure.

It was nice to be sure of something for once.

* * *

Without opening his eyes, Todd flexed his wrists against the restraints that fixed them to his chair. He knew where he was and that he would probably always be there. What he didn't know was whether or not he had dreamed his escape.  
_  
If he's Todd Manning, who am I?… I don't know where my home is…That's you and that's me… I dare you to forget me… You. You will believe me… Your daughter? But you're a child… Belle didn't talk to strangers… We're going to have to jump… I love you, Blair…_

He wanted to savor the memory-or-fantasy of Blair's kiss for a while longer before he learned for sure whether it had happened. Her lips were soft on his mouth and her hands were everywhere at once. Her hair brushed his face and smelled intoxicating. Her touch made it clear that she remembered everything as well as he did.

He sealed it all in his mind and opened his eyes.

On the other side of the room, strapped to a torture chair just like his, was his very-much-alive imposter, who had most recently called himself Victor Lord, Junior.


	20. Chapter 20

Blair decided to respond to the dozen or so voicemails Tea had left her while John and Brody were doing their cop thing with a local detective outside New Orleans. She stretched out as much as she could in the back seat of the rental car and hit the "return call" button.

"Blair!" Tea screamed almost before the phone had rung. "Where have you been? Are you and the kids all right? I know I heard Cole's name, and Hannah O'Connor's, too."

"Yeah." Blair sighed heavily. The fact that Tea's mind was still on the prison break was both exhausting and reassuring. Exhausting because too many terrible things had happened at once. Reassuring because Todd's captors did not have much of a head start. "Cole and Hannah came after Starr. Hannah's back in Statesville and Cole is in the hospital, but he'll be all right. Starr is with Cole and the other kids are at home with a bodyguard."

"Where are you?"

Blair sighed again. "Irene's people took advantage of the breakout to come after Todd. They grabbed him right in front of Starr. I'm looking for him."

There was such a long pause that Blair wondered if they had lost their connection. "Do you want the kids to come over and stay with Dani and me? Or we could go over there," Tea offered at last.

Blair realized belated that she hadn't even considered calling Tea to help Jack with Sam and Hope. She and Tea had barely spoken since the return of Todd's identity and money. Tea had been furious with Todd and unable to hear a word against Victor. As such, she hadn't been especially compatible with Project Save Jack.

"That's sweet of you, but they're all set. You and Dani need to take care of yourselves." She braced herself for the storm she was certain was coming. "Todd is Dani's father."

"Unfortunately."

"That's why I thought you and she should know what happened."

"Dani will want to support Starr," said Tea tersely. "Dani knows what it's like to lose a father. Now Starr will. And you'll know what it's like to lose a man you love."

Blair's jaw dropped. Tea couldn't have said what Blair had just heard.

"Excuse me?"

"Dani and I have been going through hell without Victor. It's not that I wish it on you and Starr, but it hasn't been a lot of fun for us to watch the two of you floating around on cloud nine because Todd was back and Victor was gone. Now you know how it feels to have someone you love taken from you."

"That's what I thought you said."

"I'm not saying I'm not sorry-"

"I'm pretty sure that's exactly what you're saying, Tea! And I'm also pretty sure you have the most selective memory of anyone I have ever met in my entire life. Don't tell me what it's like to lose someone you love like I don't know. This is not some new experience for me. It's not for Starr, either. When Todd went over that cliff in Ireland, I would have died with him if I hadn't been pregnant with Starr. You stepped in and made sure I lost Starr, too, and you bragged about it, so I know you remember that part."

"I was just doing my job."

"Spare me. Starr remembers the last time Irene took him away from us. I remember the last time Irene took him away from us, and we were so damn desperate to have him back that we accepted Victor's little story. And you know what? I knew Victor before you did, too. You weren't there when Margaret Cochran kidnapped him. For months we didn't know if he was dead or alive. You weren't there when he was executed for killing Margaret and Jack started to forget what he looked like. You weren't there when he went looking for Sam in Chicago and he almost bled to death on the floor of a warehouse. You weren't there when I was begging the police for help and they wouldn't do anything. I learned from that and that's why I'm here looking for Todd now. So you can get over thinking that you're the only one who ever experienced a loss, and you can stay the hell away from Jack and Sam while you're at it!"

Blair ended the call.

From a distance, John and Brody were looking at her strangely.

She sent Jack a text reminding him that he was not to turn Sam and Hope over to anyone and struggled to compose herself.

* * *

Cole and James didn't want Starr around, but Starr didn't have time to dwell on it. Starr had more important places to be.

She tore home in record time and, without even bothering to check on Hope (delay could be fatal), turned her closet inside out. Far in the back was the cat costume Blair had created for Starr's first high school dance. Starr had never been able to look at or touch the costume without being hit with memories of liking Cole so much and being desperate beyond words for him to like her back.

But today, without thinking, she ripped it to pieces with her bare hands. Nestled deep in the kitten-ears headband was a computer chip that she certainly hadn't put there.

"Jackpot," she whispered to herself.

Within ten minutes, she was at Llanview Police Department headquarters and demanding to see Bo Buchanan.

She had been hoping for instant gratification and was deflated to learn that it would take hours or even days for someone to decode the information on the chip.

"But this is why Irene took my father. Last time and this time," Starr said plaintively, as if that would make a difference to the outdated encoding technology.

"I know how close you and your father are," said Bo distractedly. Starr followed his gaze to a photograph of Bo, Nora, and Matthew on a long-ago camping trip. That had been right after Matthew had found out that Bo was his father; Starr remembered Matthew telling her all about it. Matthew and Starr had been close friends at the time. Their relationship was one more that had slid away with the entrance of Cole into her life, even though Cole and Matthew had practically been surrogate brothers themselves.

"Would it be all right if I went to visit Matthew today?" she asked. She couldn't go home and deal with Hope's screams for her daddy. She just couldn't. After everything Jack had put their family through with his lies about Todd murdering Victor, the least he owed her was some free baby-sitting.

"I'm sure he'd be happy to have you there," Bo told her. "Your sister is probably there with Destiny anyway."

Sure enough, Dani and Destiny were spending their unexpected day off from school at Matthew's side. Starr stopped in her tracks when she saw that Nate had accompanied the girls. James' younger brother probably did not want to see her; she didn't want to see him, either. She crept back outside and glanced surreptitiously through the window.

Starr hadn't seen Destiny recently and was shocked to see her so young and so pregnant.

_She's almost two years older than I was. It shouldn't look so awful._

But it did.

Dani was stroking Destiny's arm supportively.

Dani's father was just kidnapped. Destiny should be the one looking out for Dani.

Dani didn't know Todd well on enough to be terrified or horrified and furious. Todd's existence was an intellectual exercise to her, Starr could see. Dani cared about Todd in the detached way she would have cared about anyone who was in trouble, but she cared about Destiny the way she cared about someone she knew and loved.

Starr had embraced Dani as her long-lost sister years before, but suddenly Dani seemed like a stranger.

Matthew, who had grown from the pest who did Starr's bidding to a handsome young man, was lying unconscious, as he had for months. He was still a child, and his life might be over.

And all Starr could think was that she missed her father.

* * *

As large as La Boulaie was, Jack felt himself going stir crazy by early afternoon. The prison break meant that school was closed, and when Shaun showed up to take over bodyguard duties from his hapless underling, the claustrophobic feeling intensified. Shaun watched Jack, Sam, and Hope with far more personal interest than the other guards did.

A 2:00 call from Christian Vega asking whether the gifts intended to entice a singer to play Capricorn had mistakenly been sent to La Boulaie instead of the club was a golden opportunity. Jack decided that Christian shouldn't wait a moment longer to get the package and set out for Capricorn with his entourage.

An empty club in the middle of the afternoon wasn't the most exciting place, but at least it wasn't home.

Sam and Hope chased each other around the tables while Christian and Shaun traded stories about which escaped convicts had been found and which hadn't.

Jack inched toward the door.

"You stay where I can see you," Shaun's warning thundered as soon as the thought of making a break for it crossed Jack's mind.

"Okay," Jack agreed, and he settled for standing a few feet from the doorway and enjoying the sunlight and the absence of Sam and Hope.

He was almost ready to give up and go back inside—there was nothing interesting to look at, let alone do—when a teenage girl came barreling toward him.

He looked her up and down quickly to see if she was one of the escaped convicts. She showed no signs of it. But she showed plenty of signs of being beautiful. She didn't go to his school; he would have noticed her if she had.

"Please, you have to hide me," she begged with a pronounced accent.

"Why?"

"My brother wants to send me back to India to get married, and I need to buy time to talk his wife out of it."

The story was so stupid that it had to be true, Jack decided. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Neela Patel."

Blair had specifically told Jack that there were no rules as long as he took care of Sam and Hope. That meant that he could bring a girl home and lie about how he knew her. Shaun wasn't going to call Blair in the middle of her rescue mission to gossip about Jack's love life.

Not that he necessarily wanted to ask this girl he had barely met out.

It would just be nice to talk to someone who didn't know him as Jack Manning: Mother Killer. He hadn't had that in a long time.

* * *

"Where is it?" asked Baker.

"I have the strangest sense of déjà vu," said Todd.

Hard, metallic things slammed into him repeatedly.

When Todd regained consciousness, he knew that time had passed because Baker was eating a stack of pancakes covered with whipped cream and strawberries. Todd's stomach twisted with envy. "That's such a girly way to eat pancakes," he scratched out through parched lips.

"Where is it?" asked Baker.

"I gave it to Irene."

"You gave Irene a fake," Baker shouted over the crackling sound of a series of electric shocks, each one fiercer than the last.

Just as Todd was about to let himself pass out again, one of the low-level thugs held a bottle of liquid to Todd's mouth. Todd lapped at it instinctively; anything to soothe the mind-bending dryness in his throat.

The burning didn't start until Todd had swallowed every drop. His chest and throat caught fire and kept him awake for Baker's next question.

"Where did you put the real chip? You took it out of the ring. What did you do next?"

Todd writhed in pain and squirmed against his bonds. Sweat trickled down his back and pooled between his thighs.

Baker gestured to Low-Level, who came forward with another bottle. "You need more encouragement, Manning?" Baker asked.

Todd kept his lips pressed tightly together, but that didn't stop Low-Level from squirting whatever it was into his eyes.

The pain was intense and unexpected. Whatever this was, it hadn't been used on him before. Without permission, his voice started to explain about the cat costume in Starr's bedroom.

He caught himself just in time and bit down on his lips. Starr finding that chip was his only chance of rescue; he doubted that he would be able to break out twice. More importantly, he would rather die than bring Starr and the rest of his family into this.

"I have a daughter. Her name is Starr."

"Don't start this again."

They weren't going to let him pass out from the pain a second time. He didn't have his old defense of not knowing the answer to their question. The only thing he could do was overwhelm his mind until it shut down and hope he'd be able to find his way back.

"I have a daughter. Her name is Starr."

Shock.

"Starr loved reptiles. She had snakes and iguanas."

Hit.

"She had an iguana named Suzanne."

Slap.

"Suzanne was named after her baby-sitter. I paid Suzanne to pretend she'd been murdered in a mob hit so Blair would have to move in with me for protection—"

Shock.

"I knew that if Blair was around me she couldn't resist me. She was so mad about what I did to Jack—"

Hit.

_Say it. SAY IT, YOU BASTARD!_

"Get rid of it. I told Paloma to get rid of it."

Shock.

"I didn't want to be Jack's Peter Manning."

_All I'll ever get from you is heartache and disappointment. You're a loser, Todd._

Burn.

He wasn't sure if the burn came from Peter's lighter in the past or Baker's underling in the present.  
_  
People are gonna think you don't care about me, Dad._

Well. Then they'd be right, wouldn't they?

Why do you hate me? What do I have to do to get you to think about me the way that you used to? You used to care about me. Dad, please, don't do this to me. DON'T DO THIS TO ME!

Don't you dare tell me what I can and cannot do, you of all people. You have no right to tell me anything. You are a disaster. And where do you get off with the arrogance to tell me that I should help because you are my son? I told you this before, but maybe you just don't have enough brains to remember. You're not my son! You have ruined my life and I want nothing more to do with you. Nothing. Now get out of here. Just get away or I'll-

Peter was clutching at his collar like it was suddenly too tight. Todd caught Peter before he fell and held him to his chest while he screamed for help.

The doctors were everywhere.

The doctors checked you out and you're gonna be okay. But...

But? But the baby? Todd, the baby's gonna be all right too, isn't it?

Blair, I'm so sorry.

Oh my God.

It was a very bad fall.

No. It can't be. It can't be this way. I don't believe you. I don't believe you. You're lying. You're lying to me. You're just saying this to get back at me because you're mad at me. I'm not gonna listen to you, Todd.

Blair, listen to me. I am so, so sorry, but the baby is gone. He died inside of you.

Not the baby. No, not the baby... No, my baby. Brendan, he's the donor.

Everything's gonna be okay.

I wasn't here.

You were in Patrick's car.

It was raining, I didn't want to put my seatbelt on because it was pressing against the baby. The baby. He's gone! What happened to the baby?

He's not here.

They did a c-section while I was asleep to help Starr, right?

They delivered the baby, yeah.

Was Brendan hurt?

Yeah.

How badly? Is my baby dead?

There's nothing anybody could do, Blair. 

"Manning! Get back here! We are talking about that computer chip!"

"Brendan."

"You gave it to Brendan?"

"Marty didn't want Brendan and Patrick gave Marty whatever she wanted."

"Patrick Thornhart? Marty Saybrooke?"

_Marty the party girl. We decided to bring the party to her. You gave Powell a kiss. I want one, too. We're brothers. We share everything. Todd, you're drunk. So's everybody. You hear that, Marty, you came here for a wild ride. Stop it! Come on, Marty, one little kiss for old time's sake. Stop it! Music's hot, Marty, why don't you give us one of your hot little dances? Help! Zach, I mean it, let me go. Stop, please, please. Zach, the lady said please. I love a girl with manners. Stop it, come on. Get out of my way. I want to leave. Your lips say no, but your breath is saying yes. Shut up! Just let me out! You see what I could have done for the Llanview Lions this season. You screwed that up. I didn't do anything to you. Because of you I don't get my varsity letter, I can't play football, I'm not gonna graduate, my whole career is over. You messed me up royally and I'm gonna do the same to you. Too bad nobody can hear you scream, Marty. Lock the door, Zach. Zach, don't! Whatever you want, babe. Powell, lock the door. Powell, do it! No, Powell, don't. Powell, don't let them do this. No, someone, no! Stop him, Zach, now! Can't do that. She's been asking for it. No, Todd, stop. Please, stop! No, no, stop! All right, Zach, your turn next. Batter up, she's been dying for it. Your girlfriend's making too much noise. Can you shut her up? This ought to keep her quiet._

Marty was staring at the stuffed lion on Kevin's table. Powell reached to give it to her; Todd threw it out of their reach. Then the lion was back in his hand and he was telling Blair that their son was dead, but that couldn't be because the lion was a frog and it used to be a prince until your mother kissed it and the king reminded her that if she ever wanted to talk to the king all she had to do was go to the pond because who was there Fred the Magic Frog and all she had to do was talk to the frog you always go I don't want you to.

The king didn't want to go but the other princes might kill him. Fool thought he could run away. One less Irish boy. Make sure he's dead. Put the body in the boot. Mr. Thornhart- what the bloody hell happened? He looked just like him from behind! We'll put the car down into the sea with him in it. Get rid of him.

Get rid of it.

I'll find your son. I'll give him the heart of a Lord.

Not Jack. Take me, take me.

I will live on and you will die in this crypt.

Don't take Jack, take me! I am your legacy, it's me, not Jack, and people will miss you and you can't make people stop caring about me.

Caring about you? You're the town pariah. You're leaving town. No one will look for you because they're going to think you ran away when you're accused of murder. Poor soul didn't even hear it coming. It was Sam Rappaport, God rest his soul. They'll be finding the body any time now. Poor Sam, he's lying dead next to Blair even as we speak. She'll wake up and find the bloody mess, your gun, and Victor Lord's ring. Blair got to live for a little while, but she won't look for you. She doesn't love you.

People don't care about you. No one will look for you. They'll think you ran. I have to go. I don't want you to go. I'll leave cake crumbs. Bread crumbs. Mommy likes cake. The girl brought me a birthday cake. Peter took out his lighter and lit the stage on fire, lit the backroom on fire, get away from her Christian, get away from her McPoet, Armitage is dead, Suede is dead, they'll think it was on purpose, get in the car Rebecca, drive!

Get in the car. Throw him in the boot. I'll get in Rachel's car and she'll take me to Nora and I'll get her back like I'll get Marty and Luna and the lead pipe hit me and I can't hear. Didn't you hear? You're not my son. You're not my father. You're not going to see your children again. You make me sick. I'm the devil, what does that make you? The devil's whore. I want you gone right now get out, Todd, stop, stop him Powell lock the door, get away from me you rapist make it up to Marty three shots the trunk the crypt the basement the attic the frat house the cliff Blair Blair will never love you Starr will forget you Jack will never forgive you Scarface rapist molester heart of a Lord Jack Starr Blair.

Black.


	21. Chapter 21

Two of the tensest days of Starr's life passed before Commissioner Buchanan asked her to come down to the station to discuss the chip. She brought Jack along in case something on the chip connected to something he knew about Irene. Shaun, Sam, and Hope stayed outside the office while Bo fixed Starr and Jack with a hard gaze.

"I need you to tell me one more time everything you know about where this chip came from."

Jack crossed his arms and slouched in his seat. "I don't know anything. They don't tell me anything."

"Yeah?" asked Starr, who was not in the mood for this. "Why do you think that is?"

"Because you need someone to raise your kid while you go out saving the world with your super-genius brain that doesn't know how to use a condom?"

"Jack Manning, you were not raising my child. You were baby-sitting your niece while her father was in the hospital, and as for the other thing, I hope you learned from my mistakes and used a condom with that girl you had over all night!"

Jack flushed a humiliated shade of red. "It wasn't- we weren't- we didn't- how did you know?"

Starr pointed at her face. "You see these? They're called eyes. You took advantage of a prison break and our father being kidnapped to get away with having a girl up in your bedroom when you know Mom never would have let you get away with that."

"I slept on the floor, okay? She just needed to give her family drama some time to calm down. I know what that's like."

"Yeah? Did her self-centered brother get their father thrown in prison?"

"No, he wanted to marry her off to some guy in India she doesn't even know. Now, if his sister was anything like you I would be able to understand the temptation, but-"

Bo cleared his throat. Starr and Jack sat back in their chairs.

"Are either of you interested in the contents of that computer chip?"

"Yes, Commissioner Buchanan," Starr and Jack murmured, deciding as one that the best course of action would be to pretend that that argument had not just happened.

"Then, Starr, why don't you tell me where you found it?"

"I found it in the cat costume I wore to the Halloween dance my freshman year in high school." She stared straight into Bo's eyes because she knew that if Jack was making kissy faces and mouthing Cole's name, she would have to hit him.

"What made you look for it there?"

"Last month, when Dad thought he might get killed saving Jack from his own stupidity, he mentioned my costume when he was on the way out the door. I didn't think about it until Irene's people took him again. Then I realized it was a message." She let her voice crack. If she was going to come off as a spoiled brat, she had better come off as a desperate little girl, too.

"Do you know when your father got it?"

"No. All I know was that it was under the stone in Victor Lord's ring- my grandfather, not my uncle- and that Irene had it all along and didn't know it. My father didn't know exactly what was on the chip, either. He just knew that if he didn't give it back to Irene, she would kill us all. But I guess he gave her a fake?"

"It looks that way."

"What's on it?"

Bo held up a slim file. "There are tens of thousands of pages of information. This is what we've decoded so far. It's scientific research, mostly."

"What kind of scientific research?"

"I can't be more specific."

"Why not?"

"Because the two of you can't come in here and shut up about your love lives for five minutes, so you can't be trusted to be discrete about highly classified information."

"Highly classified information that she gave you!" Jack pointed out with an outrage that Starr found gratifying. "What if I left? Would you talk to Starr if I wasn't here?"

"No, I want to talk to you. I want to hear everything Irene Manning ever said to you or around you. I want you to tell me why she took you that night last month and what she said to you while she had you with her."

"I gave you a statement then," Jack said.

"And you have a history of changing your statements, don't you?"

Starr wanted to say something in support of Jack in return for his offer to leave, but she had to admit that Bo had a point.

Jack's lips were pressed into a fine white line. "I don't have anything to change because she didn't say very much to me. She didn't make sense. She said I could have been an ally but I turned myself into a liability and she kept asking me what I'd heard when I didn't hear anything. Then they started hitting me to see if that would make me remember, and it didn't."

"And why would she think you heard something?" asked Bo, and his voice was suddenly calmer. Starr appreciated that. No one got to be insulting and completely accurate about her brother while also making him relive the day their grandmother had nearly murdered him.

"A few nights before I went over to her house," said Jack uncomfortably. "Tea's house. Mom said I couldn't go and I went to prove I didn't have to do what Mom said. Then I got there and I didn't want to talk to Irene after all, so I left without talking to her. She said she saw me on a security camera and thought I heard something."

"Did you?"

"Nothing that made any sense." Jack closed his eyes. Bo opened his mouth to prompt Jack again, but Starr raised her hand and shook her head. She knew that Jack was trying to grab onto a nebulous strand of memory. Like Jessica had said the other day, it got harder the further back you had to remember.

"There were two of them," Jack began hollowly. "Irene and another woman. I didn't know her voice, but I knew she scared me. She scared me a lot. I think she scared Irene, too. I know everyone talks about Irene being in charge of her own rogue agency, but I think this person was in charge of her."

"Why?"

"She said Irene's life depended on something. Something about... him. Our father. They said that they used me to frame him for Uncle Victor dying and that's when I left. That's when I knew I had to tell Mom everything."

"Mom knows about this?" Starr interrupted. If Blair knew, then Todd knew, too.

"No. Not this. I meant to tell her but other things got in the way."

Bo rolled his eyes. Starr scowled. "Understandable," she told Jack. "You didn't hear anything else?"

"That's when I left," Jack repeated. Then he added, "they said they wanted this thing and Irene had to get it without knowing what it was. I guess it was the chip. Yeah, it seemed like the other person knew and was making Irene get it without telling Irene what it was."

"That fits," Starr agreed. "Dad said they kept asking for it but not telling him what it was."

"But if they were the ones who killed Victor-" Jack jerked his head toward Bo. "If they did, wouldn't that fit with what Shane Morasco said he saw? He saw long blonde hair. Not that long hair has to mean a woman, but couldn't a woman with long blonde hair come to the house, shoot Victor, and come back a few weeks later to talk to Irene about framing our father for it?"

"This would have to be a pretty powerful, pretty amoral woman," Bo said. Then his entire body stiffened. "Jack, would you remember this woman's voice if you heard it again?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

"Come with me. We're going to do a special auditory lineup just for you."

Starr barely waited for the door to close behind Bo and Jack before lunging for the folder on the desk.

The first page began in the middle of what seemed to be a scientific paper.

_… building liquid computers with DNA and its cousin RNA, the naturally occurring nucleic molecules that encode genetic information inside cells. Rather than encoding ones and zeroes into high and low voltages that switch transistors on and off, the idea is to use high and low concentrations of these molecules to propagate signals through a kind of computational soup. Computing with nucleic acids is much slower than using transistors. Unlike silicon chips, however, DNA-based computers could be made small enough to operate inside cells and control their activity. If you can program events at a molecular level in cells, you can cure or kill cells which are sick or in trouble and leave the others intact._

A circuit works by looking out for short strands called microRNAs, which regulate some processes within cells. They do this by interfering with the activity of the messenger RNA strands that transfer genetic information from the cell's nucleus to its protein-making machinery. A cell can be tricked into producing the necessary components itself when instructions in the form of synthetic genes... 

Starr skimmed through the rest of the file. It was all about the manipulation of DNA. "A way to fake DNA tests," she concluded to herself. "A way to make someone's DNA look like someone else's so you can pass him off as another person. If they don't look the same, you say he got plastic surgery to look like the person he was supposed to be."

She shivered as she put the file back where she'd found it.

She had come to half a dozen conclusions, none of them good, when Jack and Bo returned. Jack looked as pale as Starr felt.

"You heard her again?"

"He heard Allison Perkins," said Bo bluntly. "It makes a lot of sense, since Mitch Laurence was the one who put Todd in that crypt eight years ago."

Bo was pounding the buttons of his phone. "McBain? John, I have some information that might help you..."

* * *

John was convinced that what remained of Irene's organization had migrated to a facility elsewhere on the Gulf Coast. In two days, they had traveled from New Orleans to Gulfport to Pascagoula to Mobile to Pensacola as John and Brody tracked what they thought were men transporting equipment which had vanished from Irene's Louisiana headquarters.

They weren't very far from the part of Florida where Blair had grown up, but she had no desire to visit.

Brody was driving when John got a call from Bo Buchanan. After a terse conversation, John snapped the phone off and Blair saw his blue eyes glittering with excitement in the rear view mirror.

"Lovett, get back on Route 10 East," John ordered. "We've been breaking our necks doing this for two days, and Bo had the answer back there all the time."

"Where are we headed?" Brody asked as he made a turn.

"All the way down to the Everglades. How do you feel about alligators?"

Brody shrugged, as if he couldn't care less about whether he had to do battle with a half-ton hundred-toothed animal (raising Starr had left Blair with an encyclopedic knowledge of reptile specifications). "Don't think it was an alligator that hijacked that ambulance back in Llanview."

"But you would believe me if I told you it was someone who was working with Mitch Laurence, and that Mitch Laurence has property down there that wasn't under surveillance because Laurence was in prison."

The first hour of the drive was spent discussing how they should have realized that Mitch Laurence had had some sort of connection to Irene Manning.

The second hour of the drive was spent arguing about whether Blair wouldn't rather check into a hotel when they reached the edge of the Everglades. Blair refused.

That left several more hours for Blair to imagine what it would be like to see Todd again and play with the wedding rings she had made.

They stopped the car at a campground not far from the location Bo had given them. John handed his phone to Blair.

"There might not be anything there," he said. "We'll know right away if there is. If we're not back in five minutes, you hit that button to call for backup. They'll know you're calling from my phone. Either way, you stay here with the doors locked. I'd leave you with a gun, but I don't want to tempt you to do anything stupid."

Brody was already out of the car and holding several loaded weapons. "I'd give her the gun. Protect her from the alligators at least if we get held up."

"Crocodiles are more dangerous," said Blair, who was getting tired of being discussed as if she were a child but didn't have much to add about the best way to break into a rogue CIA prison.

John shrugged. "You know how to use this?" he asked Blair as he set a gun on the dashboard.

"Yes."

"Good. It's loaded." John tapped his watch. "Five minutes exactly. No sooner, because we don't want to waste the good guys' time or give the bad guys a warning."

Blair nodded. She climbed into the front seat of the car and stared hard at the clock as John and Brody blended themselves into the heavy, wet air.

She was about to place the call as John had directed when a figure emerged into their clearing.

But it wasn't John or Brody.

It was Irene.


	22. Chapter 22

Blair shoved the gun into her purse and stood up to face Irene.

"Blair," said Irene. "I'll be needing the keys to that car."

"Why? You're not going to get very far. John and Brody will track you down."

"Your little friends are dead."

Tears pricked Blair's eyes even though she knew that Irene would not hesitate to lie. John and Brody had walked into a very dangerous situation at her behest. They were outnumbered and outgunned and were relying on the power of surprise and strategy.

"It's your fault," Irene continued coolly. "You were the one who sent them here after your precious Todd, weren't you?"

"Todd is here?" asked Blair. Somewhere, deep in her mind, she knew that there were other things that she should say and do instead. But the idea of being close to Todd- of not failing him again- pushed away everything else. She could almost feel his hair running through her fingers and hear his voice in her ear. There was no sweltering heat or parked car or campground or gun. There was only Todd, breathing the same air as she was. She was sure that no matter what Irene said, Todd was close.

"What's left of him." Irene shrugged disinterestedly. "He was quite the disappointment. You wouldn't understand. You raised such a beautiful boy. Jack-"

"Don't even say his name!" Blair snapped. "You're right about one thing. He is a beautiful boy, and you took him and you threw him in the trunk of your car and you beat him. You want the keys? I'll give you the keys, and you drive as far away from Jack as you can get and never touch him again. Deal?"

Irene smirked and held out her hand. Even knowing what she was about to do, Blair was struck by not seeing anything of Todd in Irene.

Blair reached into her purse, but her fingers closed around the gun instead of the keys. Without giving Irene a chance to react, she shot Irene through the chest. Irene crumpled to the ground. Blair stared down at her.

"Nobody attacks one of my kids like that and gets away with it," she told Irene. The smell of fresh blood mixing into the hot tropical air was sickening, but Blair persevered. "You're not going to do any more damage."

"Call an ambulance," Irene gasped. "You'll make orphans of those children if you go to prison for murdering their grandmother."

Blair pretended to consider that, cocking her head in mock-thought. "You've got a point, Irene," she agreed. "I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day." She fumbled for John's phone and called for backup as he had asked. "Ambulance," she specified when she ascertained that the man on the other end of the line had expected her call. "Bring paramedics, please. How long do you think it will be? Ten minutes? Thank you." She ended the connection and returned her attention to Irene. "I hope you don't bleed to death in ten minutes," she said casually. "Bled 'til I was white. That's one of the things Todd said you did to him, isn't it?" She tried to keep the ruse going- tried to keep pretending that she had the slightest intention of letting Irene live to haunt Todd and Jack and the rest of their family- but hate was dripping off of her tongue.

Irene's hazy gaze fixed on Blair's face, and in that satisfying moment, Blair knew that Irene knew.

"All that time you spent with Todd," Blair began. A preternatural calm settled over her. Where she was usually inclined to shout, she was suddenly comfortable with little more than a whisper. "In all that time you spent with Todd, all that time you spent invading his memories and feelings and trying to hand them off to Victor, you never realized that people love him? That his family would have a problem with you torturing him? That there are other people in this world who hurt when he hurts?"

"You loved him so much that you didn't notice the difference when I replaced him."

"I loved him so much that I let myself pretend he was there when he wasn't!" Blair shivered despite the heat. Todd might have been making noises about loving her and wanting to marry her, but he was never truly going to understand what had happened when Walker Laurence had appeared. That would destroy them from the inside out if they ever used the wedding rings that were burning in her pocket.

Irene sensed the weakness. "He won't ever forgive you if you let his mother die," she tried.

Blair laughed humorlessly. "You know what? I don't care. I mean, I care. I'd like Todd to love me and forgive me and marry me and live happily ever after with our beautiful, obnoxious children." She hadn't said that out loud since Todd's return. She hadn't even let herself think it since Todd's return. Desperate situations had a way of making things very clear. "But what I'd like more than that is for Todd to be free of you. I'd like him to wake up in the morning and know that there's no chance he'll have to see you. I'd like him to go to his office and know that our children are safe from you. I'd like him not to worry about some secret government agency no one's ever heard of letting you off scott free again. I want that for him more than I want anything for me. That's one of the things about love. I wouldn't expect you to understand."

There was a rustling in the nearby foliage and Blair stepped away from Irene, internally practicing her lie as she did so. We were struggling over the gun. It just went off. John would accept that. He'd accepted it when she'd told him that that was how she had shot Eli two years before.

The rustling stopped. "John? Brody?" Blair called.

There was no answer.

Blair was about to return to Irene when a long, toothy snout poked its way into view.

For a second, Blair wasn't standing in the Everglades waiting to see whether Todd and the two good men she had led here were dead or alive. Instead, she was sitting on the steps of La Boulaie listening to her seven-year-old daughter rattle on about one of her favorite subjects.

_Crocodiles smell blood. Crocodiles smell fear. Can't we have a pet crocodile? I bet Max would stay away if we had a crocodile!_

Blair backed herself up to the car and opened the door a crack. "Irene," she called in a singsong voice that she hoped wouldn't disturb their visitor. "You have a beautiful granddaughter named Starr. I know Todd told you all about how much she loves reptiles, the more disgusting the better. Let's see if she inherited that from you!"

The crocodile, slow and low, walked closer to Irene.

"I'll see you in hell, Blair," Irene said.

"Probably not," Blair returned. She put one foot inside the car. She did not want to give the crocodile a chance to change its mind about what it wanted for dinner. "Todd and I will be very busy when we get to hell. Lots of people to see. I'd like to start with Asa Buchanan, honestly. Viki once told Dorian that she's sure Asa is in heaven, but I really doubt it."

The crocodile became so still that it almost disappeared inches from Irene. Blair had watched enough episodes of When Animals Attack with Starr to know what came next. With every fiber of her being, she hoped that Irene knew, too.

"It's ironic," she said casually. "You spent eight years almost killing Todd while he held out for me, and my voice will be the last thing you'll hear." She caught her breath and sang softly.

_"Never smile at a crocodile  
No, you can't get friendly with a crocodile  
Don't be taken in by his welcome grin  
He's imagining how well you'd fit within his skin..."_

The crocodile's jaws snapped so quickly that Blair didn't even see them. She hastened inside the car, locked the doors, and checked her watch. John's backup should be arriving soon.

Worrying about John, Brody, and Todd would have made Blair fall apart when she had to stay in control. She had made sure that at least one good thing had come out of this trip, and she wasn't going to let Irene change that from beyond the grave.

She practiced her story again.

_John_- because in her imagination, John was all right- _I did fire your gun. I was trying to protect Irene. I wanted that bitch brought to justice, not taking the easy way out. But I missed the crocodile and his jaws came down on her before I could aim again. So I got right back in the car like you told me to. I hate to see anyone die so horribly, but maybe it was just karma, you know?_

* * *

Black.

"Sir, the alarm."

Black.

"We can't have been compromised again."

Black.

"You fool! Didn't you learn anything last time?"

"Just get them out of here. Manning first, he's more dangerous."

Black.

"Manning! Manning, you can stop faking it now and make a break for it. I'm taking off your shackles."

Todd wasn't going to fall for that no matter how strong the urge for self-preservation. Todd was going to stay where it was black and he couldn't do anything to hurt Starr.

The feeling of the shackles falling away from his arms was an illusion. The feeling of being lifted up, thrown over a burly shoulder in a fireman's carry was an illusion. If he came out of the blackness for just a second to prove it to himself, he would have to start all over and Starr might die or he might die which was sort of but not completely the same.

Starr was too alive and real for his thoughts to stay where he'd put them. More than ever he thought that maybe it wasn't an illusion, maybe he should let his eyes see...

Todd blinked. He was upside down, over the idiot guard's shoulder. He tightened his stomach muscles and rolled away amidst a stream of profanity. The guard reached for Todd's throat, and Todd returned the favor with less strength but more desperation. He didn't know where he was or what was going on, but he knew that whatever this man wanted was the opposite of what he wanted.

The guard gagged as Todd managed to get a knee into his stomach. The grip was broken and Todd rushed for the door. It wasn't locked; an eardrum-piercing alarm was wailing away and the whole wherever-he-was was in chaos.

The hallway echoed with both sirens and gunfire. Todd threw himself down hard and crawled forward. He had to go toward the bullets. He wasn't going back.

One bullet came close to him, and then none did. The noise continued over his head. For once, he wasn't the target.

"Manning."

He knew the voice; it was John McBain's. That didn't mean McBain was there, not in a world full of recordings, impersonators, and illusions.

"Manning, keep coming forward."

Todd stopped. If the recording-impersonator-illusion wanted him to come forward, no doubt there was a trap awaiting him.

"Todd, you can't go back and you can't stay there. But you can get past me and you can get to the door."

Todd didn't understand why that was logical, but he knew that it was. He kept crawling. Something lunged at him and fell down with a thud.

"Nice shot, Lovett."

That was when Todd pulled his legs under himself and ran hard toward the door.

"Lovett, get out now. You're covered."

Todd flung himself on the door; it didn't open. He felt the presence of Brody Lovett Defiler of Nieces beside him, but before he could respond Lovett had drawn his gun and blasted the door apart the hard way.

"McBain, come on back," Lovett barked.

Todd went past him into the wet, heavy air that was so different from what he'd been breathing inside. He opened his mouth and tried to gulp it like water.

No one stopped him as he plowed confusedly forward, disoriented by the cacophony of smells and the conflicting wails of the alarm inside and the siren outside. He lost his balance on the slippery ground and twisted his ankle as he fell. The mud felt good on his hands and leg.

When he righted himself, McBain and Lovett were both beside him and nudging him toward a barely-visible path through a wet, overgrown mess. His legs weren't quite up to doing what he told them to do, and it took all of his concentration to navigate the trail.

They emerged into a clearing that reeked of blood and gasoline in addition to swamp. He saw the ambulance first, and then a sign for a campground.

Then he saw her.

"Blair," he breathed as well as he could, and collapsed at her feet.


	23. Chapter 23

Blair sank down to the wet gravel parking lot and pulled Todd into her arms. He was dirty and shaking, but he'd walked up to her under his own power and he knew who she was. That had to mean that no permanent damage had been done. It just had to.

He buried his face in her chest so she couldn't see it. "Hey," she whispered in his ear, not caring that paramedics and police were swarming around what should have been a private moment. "Shh. I've got you."

Todd mumbled something in response that Blair didn't hear. She stroked his hair and then kissed it. She was vaguely aware of the paramedics coming closer with a stretcher and medical bags. When Todd shifted to put his arms around her, Blair let herself melt into the embrace for a few seconds before looking up to catch the eye of the waiting paramedics. "Are you ready to sit up and get checked out?" she asked Todd gently.

"No," he told her, but when she untangled herself from him enough to regain her feet, he stood up with her and allowed himself to be guided to the edge of the stretcher.

One of the paramedics directed Todd to lie down. This time the "no" was much more firm.

"Will you check him out as much as you can without him lying down?" Blair asked. "We'll negotiate if you find anything."

"Of course," agreed the paramedic, who at least appeared to have the brains not to ask Blair to step away. She couldn't have if she'd wanted to. Todd had her hand in a grip like a vise, and she squeezed back with as much reassurance as she could muster while the paramedic went about listening to Todd's heart and lungs and checking his blood pressure. The paramedic rattled off a list of numbers that, aside from the slight fever, meant nothing to Blair. She really did need to ask Dorian to teach her what she should be listening for in this kind of situation.

The paramedic moved along to checking reflexes and feeling for broken bones. Todd either ignored the questions about pain entirely or answered with an irritable grunt.

"You have a remarkably strong body, Sir. I don't see any signs of permanent injury." The paramedic addressed himself to Todd, but his eyes flicked constantly to Blair. "I still recommend going to the hospital for a more thorough exam. His pulse is a little fast and his blood pressure is a little low. That could just be the dehydration." The paramedic pinched the skin on the back of Todd's hand; it stood up like a tent. One of the other paramedics opened a bottle of water and placed it in Todd's hand.

"Mr. Manning, will you drink this, please?"

Rage flickered across Todd's pinched features and he flung the bottle at the paramedic who had offered it. Water splashed across the young man's clothes, though it made little difference in the soupy Florida humidity.

"Todd!" Blair squeezed his hand. She mouthed an apology at the young man, who looked more concerned than outraged.

"We'll give him an IV if he can't drink," the first paramedic said. He began rummaging for the equipment to make good on the suggestion.

"No." Now that the paramedics had pinpointed the problem, Blair could hear how dry Todd's mouth was when he spoke. His lips were cracked and his eyes were sunken and burning.

Blair brushed her own lips over Todd's hand and wondered how she had missed how shriveled his skin felt. "They just want to give you an IV to rehydrate you. You'll feel better."

Todd's eyes blazed even harder. "No," he growled. He managed to raise his voice enough to be heard all around the parking lot. "I do not consent."

Those were magic words; the paramedics looked to Blair for direction. Blair looked at Todd. "Did you change your mind about drinking? There are sports drinks in the car if you don't want water." She glanced at the paramedics. "That would be all right?" They nodded in agreement.

"No," Todd repeated, this time barely mouthing the word. It was like dealing with Hope, who, with the excuse of being not quite three years old, had raised refusing to acknowledge that she was hungry or thirsty or tired to an art form.

"Is there any special reason you'd like to kill yourself after living through all of that?" Blair asked Todd. Knowing how thirsty he must be was starting to drive her wild with pain and fear.

Todd gestured at the paramedics. "They poisoned everything."

Blair caressed Todd's back and he leaned heavily into her.

"Confusion, irritability, and paranoia are all signs of serious dehydration," one of the paramedics told her.

"Do you know what was going on in there?" Blair jerked her head in the direction of Irene's prison. A steady stream of cops were packing handcuffed men and women into the back of a police van. Brody was watching them carefully; John must have gone back to the facility. "He's not paranoid and he's not confused."

Todd said something that might have been "thank you."

The paramedics were distracted from arguing by a shout for medical attention from the direction of the facility. A long, lean body was deposited on a stretcher and a cluster of uniformed men formed around it. Even with the obstructed view, Blair knew who she was seeing. She might not always have known his name, but she would have known him anywhere.

"That's- that looks like-"

"My brother," Todd whispered. "Family tradition. We can't die properly."

Victor turned his head as his stretcher rattled past Todd and Blair on its way to an ambulance. He called Blair's name, and Blair waved in acknowledgement. She didn't have the words to say anything to him.

"You going to go take care of him?" Todd asked. He tightened his grip on her hand, which Blair wouldn't have thought possible.

"No." Blair gave Todd another hug. "I came here for you. That's Tea's job." She made a face, remembering her last conversation with Tea. "I should call her. I should call Starr and Jack first." She settled herself onto the stretcher beside Todd and selected Starr's name from her list of contacts.

"Mom!" Starr answered halfway through the first ring. "Did you find Dad? Are you okay?"

"Is Jack with you?"

"I'm here, Mom." Jack's voice blended with his sister's.

"Are you both all right?"

"That's what we asked you!" Jack retorted.

"I'm fine. Your dad is fine."

Starr fell into a gushing, chattering torrent of relief culminating in a request to speak to her father. Todd straightened up, putting on a brave face for Starr and Jack even though they couldn't see him. "Just a quick hello, all right?" Blair directed Starr. "You tell him you're glad he's all right and that you love him, and everything else will be later. Thirty seconds."

Jack muttered something about dictatorships. Blair ignored him, but let herself be pleased that Jack wanted to talk to Todd at all. She held the phone up to Todd's lips.

"Hi, Shorty. Hi, Jack." The four words sounded agonized.

"I'm so glad to hear your voice, Dad. I knew Mom would find you, I knew she would, but we couldn't lose you again. I love you so much."

Todd moved his lips as if to return the sentiment, but no sound came out. Jack's voice filled the space instead.

"I'm really happy that you're okay, Dad."

Todd's face creased as if he might cry. Blair felt like crying herself. She had never heard Jack call Todd _Dad_ before. She decided that it was time to take over. Whatever strength had allowed Todd to make it this far was fading fast.

"He says he loves you, too. I'll text you in a few hours with an update. We're sort of in the middle of the Everglades and we need to get inside and get your father taken care of."

"The Everglades? Did you see any alligators or crocodiles?" Blair knew from long experience that there were times that Starr just couldn't help herself.

"Sweetheart, you have no idea."

Blair ended the call and scrolled through her list of contacts to Tea's name. She was taken straight to voicemail; perhaps John had already called her. "Hi, Tea. It's Blair. We're in Florida. We found Todd. We found Victor, too. You were wrong about him being dead. Guess you aren't as smart as you think you are. Call John for the details." She turned her phone off and returned her full attention to Todd. She could see that her message had amused him, but he no longer had the energy to express himself.

Brody approached with the paramedic Todd had soaked in tow. "They're leaving for the hospital now. Everyone thinks that Todd should let himself get checked out more thoroughly."

Todd pushed himself gracelessly off the stretcher and pushed it toward the paramedic. "No."

Blair was again reminded of Hope. No, unsurprisingly, was the usually-quiet toddler's particular favorite word.

The question, then, became what she would do with Hope in this situation. She wouldn't allow Hope to opt out of a trip to the hospital. Or would she, if she had already been given assurances that what Hope really needed was a drink and a rest? Then she might decide that the kindest course of action would be getting away from the barrage of noises and sights and people. Knowing that Hope wasn't like Sam, who thrived on being in the middle of a storm, she would take Hope somewhere quiet and private to even out. Hope could instantly become mellow when she was in a calm, familiar place. Todd becoming mellow was a ridiculous thought, but allowing him to continue his battle of wills with the medical staff until he passed out from thirst would be more trouble than it was worth.

She formulated a plan and appealed to Brody. "Would it be all right with you and John if Todd and I took the rental car and you rode back with everyone else?"

Brody looked skeptically at Todd. "You're sure?" he asked Blair.

"I'm sure."

He nodded. "I'll tell McBain."

Blair smiled gratefully and helped Todd into the car. He winced when Blair pulled the seat belt across his chest, and it wasn't hard to guess why. If the marks on his arms were any indication, he'd had enough of being strapped into a chair in recent days. Furious tears sprang to her eyes at the thought.

Todd misinterpreted the tears as directed at him and hastily clicked the seat belt into place. The gesture left Blair hard pressed to keep from bursting into real, wrenching sobs.

Blair reached into the cooler behind the seat and produced a bright blue bottle of sports drink. She placed it in the cupholder beside Todd.

"In case you change your mind about it being poisoned," she told him. "We bought a case in Mobile the day before yesterday. Irene didn't know we were there, and it's been with us the whole time."

Todd turned his head toward the window.

"Then when we get far enough away that you think it's safe, we'll stop and buy something for you to drink."

He caught her hand again. This time, he softly laced their fingers together instead of holding her in a death grip. "Whiskey," he mouthed.

She almost laughed. "Water first. This time tomorrow, definitely whiskey."

* * *

Every football coach Todd had ever had, from Sam Rappaport on down the line, had talked about the importance of taking a few deep breaths before play began or resumed. Todd had done it religiously, willing to take every physical edge he could get over an opponent.

When he'd been older and ordered into court-mandated therapy, Todd had scoffed at the suggestion that concentrating on his breathing might alleviate anger or anxiety. It had taken him more years than he cared to admit to realize that the coaches and the therapists had been telling him the exact same thing- that breathing was one of the easiest links between mind and body to manipulate.

Mind over matter. He was good at that. The same skill set that left him fearless of a collision on the football field also left him able to survive eight years in a paramilitary facility.

As Blair eased the car onto the highway, Todd took two slow, deep breaths to prepare himself for the last phase of the latest battle.

He had long since stopped being distracted by the pain inflicted by the shocks and beatings. The terrible thirst and general exhaustion were still very real obstacles, but he could hold out until he was somewhere safe before he gave in to them.

He squinted into the darkness. There were far too many possible locations for an ambush, but thankfully too few cars on the road to make them an easy target for a tail.

The traffic became more congested as they passed through a small city. The billboards advertising soda and iced coffee taunted him.

He and Blair had traveled far enough away from the facility, Todd determined as they reached the far edge of the town. He needed to take the risk of drinking. He wasn't going to last the night.

His tongue was too thick and heavy to say Blair's name, so he patted her shoulder and pointed to a brightly lit fast food restaurant.

"Thank God," said Blair. "I hope you know you're scaring the hell out of me with this. Inside or drive thru?"

He pointed at the drive thru. Anyone in the world might be inside that restaurant ready to separate him from Blair. The drive thru wasn't perfect, but it was better.

Blair tossed the hated, poisoned sports drink into the back seat and replaced it with a fresh bottle of water. Todd opened it shakily and held it to his lips. He tried to slow himself down in case it was the same burning, painful concoction Baker had given him. Once the liquid was in his mouth, though, he couldn't stop himself from swallowing as fast as possible, splashing water down the front of his shirt as he did.

Nothing happened. The water was just water. He gulped the second bottle just as quickly and sipped the third while he tried a few bites of the burgers and fries Blair had bought. He fed Blair a few of the fries, too, and she kissed his fingers without removing her hands from the wheel.

"Feeling better?" she asked.

"Yeah." It still hurt to use his voice. "How much longer?"

"Couple of hours. What do you need?"

"Just you."

She smiled. "Love you, too."

As hard as he tried to keep alert- a threat could come from anywhere, and now he had Blair to protect as well as himself- Todd dozed off and woke with a start at least twice. The relief of the moment when he realized that this time the strap holding him down was just a seatbelt and that Blair was beside him was almost good enough to justify the lapses.

He squinted into the darkness. There was nothing but water on all sides for mile after mile. Blair was driving them out into the middle of the ocean. He asked if the car was a boat, but that question didn't seem to make any sense to Blair, so he told her never mind. It could be that they would drown if she realized where they were, like the cartoons where Wile E. Coyote could run off the cliff into thin air without falling until he looked down.

More likely, he was hallucinating. He was imagining water because he was so dirty and in need of a shower that his skin was crawling. It was a wonder Blair could stand the smell of him. With a jolt, he realized that Blair might not be real after all, but he touched her and she asked if he was all right, and he decided again that she must be real or she wouldn't feel or sound quite so perfect.

The water sloshed below him and the water he was drinking sloshed inside of him. He was going to turn to liquid and disappear into the water whether it was there or not.

He must have fallen asleep again, because Blair shook him awake and helped him out of the car. He stumbled along beside her, leaning on her as little as possible, and didn't realize until it was too late that they were in an elevator.

"It's a trap," he told her. Irene's people were going to drop them down an elevator shaft and that would be that. He didn't like the way the elevator moved or sounded.

"There's no trap," Blair answered so calmly that he wanted to believe her. "Look, here we are." She led him to a room labeled "Honeymoon Suite," and that was when he knew for sure that he had lost his mind and descended into fantasy.


	24. Chapter 24

Blair kept her arms around Todd with the intention of helping him to the bed, but he pulled free and stalked, catlike, ahead of her into the bedroom. He looked into the closet and under the bed; he tested the locks on the windows that overlooked Florida darkness. He took a chair from the desk and propped it under the doorknob before fastening the chain and rattling the deadbolt.

"You're safe. We're safe," Blair tried to assure him.

Todd didn't give any sign that he had heard her. He proceeded into the bathroom, slamming into something and making Blair wince in sympathy. She turned the light on for him and- after making her own brief check to ensure that there was no boogeyman hiding in the heart-shaped hot tub or the enormous rain shower- ordered him in the direction of the toilet. She had been forcing water down his throat all throughout the long drive to Key West. If he didn't need to relieve himself by now, his body was more broken than the paramedics had thought and she would have to escort him to a hospital after all.

Blair stepped back into the bedroom to give Todd his privacy, knowing he hadn't gotten any during his imprisonment. She blinked back tears when she saw that the bed was covered with rose petals and a note detailing the origin of the new silk sheets that they were free to take home with them after their special trip.

This suite wasn't intended for people like them. This suite was intended for people who got married exactly one time, when they were beautiful and rich and young and idealistic. Those people never had to think about the best way to explain that they'd fed their mother-in-law to a crocodile. Those people had spouses who would almost definitely object to their mothers being fed to crocodile. (Todd probably wouldn't be bothered, but it still had to be explained tactfully lest he go off half-cocked and hand her over to the police, then nearly get himself killed trying to get her out of trouble with the police. His history with this kind of thing didn't inspire much confidence.)

She texted Starr and Jack the hotel's contact information and told them to ask Sam and Hope if they wanted souvenirs from Key West.

Then she returned to the bathroom and called Todd's name.

There was no response. Her heart began to pound.

"Todd, I'm counting to five and if you don't answer, I'm coming in. One. Two."

She decided that five was too many when he might have fallen into the hot tub and drowned, so she opened the door.

Todd was sitting on the floor with his knees pulled tightly to his chest and a basket of soap and shampoo clenched in one hand. In the unforgiving fluorescent light- really? in a room that had obviously been designed with lovemaking in mind?- he looked weaker and paler than ever. His eyes, like hers, were red with unshed tears.

She crouched down beside him; her ankles and knees crackled with exhaustion and stress. _If I feel this bad, how does he feel?_

"Hey." She ran her hand along the fringe of his hair and tilted his head so he was looking at her. "What hurts?"

There was no reply, but his eyes weren't vacant and she was almost certain that he had understood the question.

"Are you hungry? You didn't eat much in the car."

Still no response.

"Too tired to eat? Want to get into bed?"

"No."

It was the first word she'd gotten out of him since they'd gotten off the elevator, so she decided to push her luck with an open-ended question. "What's wrong?"

"I hate being dirty."

Oh. That would explain the toiletry basket. She removed it from his hand. In addition to soap and shampoo, it had massage oil and- her eyes widened in appreciation- other things that weren't usually complimentary in hotel rooms, but that in her experience probably should have been. Not that she and Todd were in a position to make any use of them.

"Then let's get you clean." Blair glanced at the shower. The shelf was the right height for Todd to lean against if he wasn't up to standing. "We can do this."

"I was supposed to be in prison, but I was in New York," said Todd. "This waitress was offering me food, beer, sex, and all I wanted was her shower."

"Yeah?" Blair had never heard that story before. Todd wouldn't have been telling it if he hadn't been pushed as far as he could go physically and mentally. "Did you get it?" She unbuttoned Todd's shirt, but he brought his hand up to stop her before she could pull it off his shoulders.

"You first."

Blair considered that. She wouldn't be able to give Todd as much help as he needed without getting in the shower herself, but this was not how she had pictured her first time disrobing for him since his return.

And oh, had she ever pictured it.

"All right." She quickly shucked off her clothes and found herself glad to be free of them. "Your turn."

This time, Todd leaned forward and let her slide his shirt off his back and then helped her get his pants over his hips.

"This is not how I pictured our reunion," he said, echoing her own thoughts.

"Me either," she whispered.

As Blair had hoped, she was able to position Todd so he was half-sitting on the shelf. He bowed his head when the water hit him and looked so vulnerable that Blair worried that the water was hurting him.

Then she looked hard for the first time at the cuts and bruises that littered his body. Of course the water was stinging, and the soap would be worse. She gave herself an irritated mental shake for not realizing how necessary this was. Todd shouldn't have had to request it.

"Lean forward for a second to get your hair wet," she instructed as she put her hands on his chest to steady him. His heartbeat was reassuringly strong against her palm. She pressed him back into place.

"Shampoo first, okay?" she narrated, just in case. He wasn't entirely lucid and she doubted that things would go well if she surprised him. "It's going to feel cool on your head, and I'm going to run my hands through your hair. Close your eyes for this part." He obeyed and she massaged her fingers against his scalp. "I always loved your hair, you know," she said, because it seemed like she should be saying something whether he could understand it or not. "It was the first thing I noticed that day in Rodi's. All that long, beautiful hair swinging around every time you moved your head."

The shampoo wouldn't lather, so Blair rinsed it out and tried again. "I couldn't believe it when you cut it off," she continued, noting with satisfaction that this time bubbles were foaming their way down Todd's neck. "But I always wanted to touch it, no matter what you did to it. And don't think I didn't notice that practically the first thing you did when you got back to Llanview this time was get highlights. Not that I blame you. Kind of taking ownership of your body again, right?" She worked her fingers around his ears and he whimpered softly. "That hurt?" He shook his head to indicate that it did not. "Good." She rubbed his ears a few extra times for good measure before rinsing off the shampoo again.

"Face next," she said. "Close your eyes again." She pulled a disposable face cloth out of its wrapper and moistened it in the warm spray of the shower. "I'm starting at your forehead and I'm going to run my hands right over your eyelids. You know, I hardly ever saw you with your eyes closed since you never slept very well. It was special when I did. Like a gift. It made me feel good to know you were at peace. It made me feel special that you could feel comfortable with me. You made me feel like that, too. Remember that time I was too afraid to sleep and you told me about the dragon that would take me away on his back?"

She traced her finger over his scar and his whole body jerked in response.

"Shh," she murmured, and massaged her fingers through the week's growth of beard. "Don't know if you want to shave this, but I don't think either of us should have a razor right now." He chuckled against her hands and her heart soared. "I love it when you laugh. Even when you're laughing at me. All right, sometimes when you're laughing at me. You can open your eyes if you want." Slowly, languidly, he did, and then closed them again briefly. She felt the implied compliment.

She took a soft sponge and squirted shower gel onto it. "I'm going to have to touch your neck. Don't worry, I'm not going to wring it. Not today. Maybe the next time you piss me off." She traced the cords of his neck down to his shoulders. "I love your shoulders and your back, too. They're broad. Like you really could carry me away from anything that would hurt me."

He raised his hand and ran it down her side from her breast to her hip. He didn't speak, but she heard him loud and clear: _I could. I would._

She was getting into the area that had the bulk of the cuts and bruises. It was both more important to keep talking and harder to do it.

"This is going to sting a little bit more, but we have to do it. Starr's going to want to fling herself right into these arms, right? We can't let some nasty infection stop that. And Sam, he thinks you're Spiderman. I know you care for him as much as he cares for you. You're going to want to pick him right up off the ground, aren't you? It's hard not to fall in love with Sam, isn't it? It took me about two days, and his damn biological mother once locked me in the trunk of a car that was about to go into a crusher."

Todd made a distressed sound deep in his throat and rose to his feet. Blair tried to guide him back to his perch, but he tangled her into a desperate embrace and wouldn't release her. She didn't have the will to fight him. It was too wonderful to feel every inch of his skin against hers and know that he was warm and solid and alive.

She sighed and fantasized about falling asleep right there under the water. Reluctantly, she determined that there were serious problems with that plan. At least there was a king-sized bed made up with silk sheets awaiting them.

She kissed Todd's cheek and pulled away so she could get the sponge around his lower back and down to his ass. He had to be standing for that part, anyway. She moved the sponge around his hip and toward his groin.

His hand closed firmly about her wrist. "You have access for recreational purposes only," he told her roughly.

"We'll have to get to that one of these days," she said, because she was exhausted and the part of her brain that told her not to say stupid things that weren't helpful to anyone had long since given out.

The look Todd gave her woke her up again. Too worn to stand for more than a few minutes or not, her dragon looked ready to devour her whole. It was just as well that he almost certainly wouldn't remember any of this in the morning. She might not remembered it, either. If she did remember it, she could pretend she didn't.

Blair gave Todd the sponge and privately wondered whether he was worried that that particular part of his body would respond to her touch, or worried that it would not.

When Todd had washed his own groin and thighs, she helped him sit down again. He settled against the wall gratefully and Blair took the sponge back from him. As their hands touched, she covered them both with soap and let Todd wash her hands as she washed his.  
_  
Gunpowder residue_, she thought. _Washing it off._ This time Todd didn't know what he was doing. This time, he was barely more present than she had been the day she'd shot Max.

"Max deserved it," said Todd.

_So did Irene,_ Blair reassured herself.

She resumed her monologue as she soaped up Todd's lower legs. They were as well-muscled as they had ever been. Powerful. An athlete's legs, the source of his almost inhuman strength.

"We almost never talk about your football days unless we're fighting. You show me how strong you are- never to hurt me, though, never to scare me- and you remind me about it. Then I say you should want to forget that, anyway. If you hadn't... if you hadn't left that life the way you did, we wouldn't have met the way we did. So I'm glad. But once in a while I think it's funny, because I know that when I was a kid I never could have gotten the time of day from a football star. Okay, that isn't true. By the time I was a teenager, people were telling me I was pretty. But that was all I had, everything. I couldn't afford to splurge it on a football player when I needed it to set me up for life. It was the only way I could claw myself up."

She had reached his feet, and he moaned as she touched them. She saw that that soles of his feet had been beaten to make it harder for him to run away. A lot of good that had done Irene.

"I'm glad she's dead. No regrets," Blair whispered to herself.

She washed her own body in record time, with only one or two sideways glances to make sure that Todd wasn't in any distress.

She rinsed herself off, turned off the shower, and rubbed them both down with heavy towels. When she had squeezed as much water from their hair as she could- she didn't have the energy for the blow dryer- she led Todd into the bedroom. Clothes were out of the question. She didn't feel like unpacking her bag, and she thought the silk sheets would feel better than anything else against Todd's raw, abused skin.

He stiffened as she tried to guide him onto the bed.

"You might not be tired," she said, even though she knew he was ready to collapse, "but I am."

He gave her a light push to indicate that she should lie down. She obliged, and he followed, climbing on top of her and resting his head against her breasts. His weight was more comforting than he knew and she would have been more than willing to spend the night in that position.

"Kidding," he whispered, and rolled aside, wincing a bit as he did so. They arranged themselves in the middle of the bed with their legs entwined and their foreheads close together. Blair pulled the soft, light sheet over them, caressing as much of Todd as she could in the process.

When they were lying side by side, Todd patted her hip with his hand as if to reassure himself that she was real. Blair understood that feeling. "Blair?"

"Yes?"

"Will you sing for me?"

There was very little that Todd could have asked of her at that moment that she would not have done, but the request surprised her.

"You have such a pretty voice," Todd coaxed, not that she needed it.

"What song do you want?"

"Anything. Anything. You can sing Christmas carols or 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. I just want to know that you're still here when I can't see you." His words were slurring more and more with tiredness. She wouldn't make it through 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall; he certainly wouldn't be able to.

She thought of the first time they'd taken their problems to a bed and laced her fingers through his. She tried to draw in enough breath to start.

_...Why you look so sad?  
Tears are in your eyes  
Come on and come to me now  
Don't  
Be ashamed to cry  
Let me see you through  
'Cause I've seen the dark side too_

It felt like a lie. Irene's machinations had left her feeling used and manipulated and foolish. Without Irene and Victor, she would never have found herself protecting her pregnant sixteen-year-old-daughter from a violent man who claimed to be her father. She never would have found herself with a fifteen-year-old son who was so angry that he bullied other children nearly to death and was afraid to talk to her.

But that was nothing compared to what Todd had lost. Nothing anyone could do would ever give Todd back Starr's first dance at the Community Center with a little boy who had come from New York to visit her or Jack's first time on a bike without training wheels.  
_  
When the night falls on you  
You don't know what to do  
Nothing you confess  
Could make me love you less_

It wasn't so much the confession that she was worried about. Todd knew that Irene needed to be removed from the equation, for their children's sakes if not their own.

Instead, she worried about what Todd already knew- that somehow she had managed to accept Victor in his place. Her head swam with confused half-memories of the man who had called himself Walker Laurence.  
_  
I'll stand by you  
I'll stand by you  
Won't let nobody hurt you..._

She had, though. She'd tracked down Mitch and tied him up and been ready to do absolutely anything to bring Todd home. With all that, she hadn't gone far enough.  
_  
So, if you're mad, get mad  
Don't hold it all inside  
Come on and talk to me now_

Because that was such a likely course of action for Todd Manning. She did seem to remember him shouting that he blamed her.

As well he should.

She had somehow risen from her humble origins to become the biggest fool ever to walk the planet.

_Hey, what you got to hide?  
I get angry too  
Well I'm a lot like you..._

They had been alike once, at least.

_When you're standing at the crossroads  
And don't know which path to choose  
Let me come along  
Cause even if you're wrong  
I'll stand by you..._

And that was the thing he had never been willing to do. He lied, and then he covered his lies with more lies when she would have forgiven the first lie if he had just trusted her in the first place. That was the road she had told him she couldn't go down again.

That was the promise he seemed tantalizingly close to making and keeping.  
_  
I'll stand by you  
Won't let nobody hurt you_

Not even if she had to shoot her children's grandmother and watch her get devoured by a crocodile.

_I'll stand by you  
Take me in, into your darkest hour  
And I'll never desert you  
I'll stand by you..._

Todd's breathing was deep and heavy and his hand was slack in hers. She let the song fade away and nestled closer to Todd.

"Love you," she told him.

He didn't move or speak, but she could have sworn that she felt it just before she let herself pass out.

_I love you, too._

* * *

_**Disclaimer**__: I'll Stand By You is by the Pretenders and played during the leadup to Todd and Blair's first love scene on the show. Obviously I do not own it. Or, you know, anything else you recognize here._


	25. Chapter 25

Todd instinctively flexed his wrists against the restraints as he awoke. He felt nothing but soft silk sheets.

_Shit_.

He'd obviously gone crazier than usual and was lost in his mind again.

Images flashed through his brain almost too fast for him to recognize them.

Blair, shining and naked and _wet_, running her soapy hands over his chest.

Blair, singing one of those stupid songs from forever ago while she lay next to him in bed.

Blair, tangled up with him on the wet ground breathing the jungle air.

None of those memories were part the repertoire he had played over and over for eight years. That meant that either they were new, or they were not memories at all.

The stab of fear brought up two more images: the river that was too wide to be a river beneath the car, and a sign reading Honeymoon Suite.

"Todd? Are you awake?"

"Yes," he said, because explaining that he wasn't sure was too complicated.

Blair was propped up on one arm and watching him closely. The Pepto-Bismol pink sheet was slipping off of her shoulder and revealing delicious curves beneath.

That was a sign that he was here and this was real. His broken mind might well have conjured up a naked Blair and an enormous bed with silk sheets, but he would never have made them such a nausea-inducing color.

"Why do the sheets look like Barbie exploded?" he asked.

Blair made the face she generally made when she wasn't acknowledging his jokes even though she found him charming. "I don't know. I'll ask when I call room service." She waved a menu at him.

His mouth flooded with anticipation at the mention of food, and suddenly it hit him that he was ravenous. He snatched the menu from Blair's hand and ripped the phone from the bedside table. He ordered eggs and bacon and sausage and potatoes and toast and juice and coffee and fruit and at the last minute he remembered to ask if they would put chocolate chips in the pancakes. They would.

"Ten minutes," he told Blair. He started to return the menu to her when the heading at the top caught his eye.  
**  
Atlantis Suites  
Key West, Florida**

_Key West._

He slid off the bed and rushed for the window. The sun was shining brightly on the Gulf of Mexico. The Overseas Highway stretched out of sight toward the mainland.

He lunged for the phone again, looking for the room number. It read only _Honeymoon Suite_.

It was all real: McBain and Lovett blasting into Irene's lair; Blair waiting for him as soon as he made it outside; Jack calling him "Dad;" the long drive over the water to Key West; Blair washing his hair and singing for him; the pink sheets and the rose petals on the floor; and him standing naked in the middle of the room.

He glanced down surreptitiously, wanting to confirm with his eyes what he felt with his body.

No morning wood.

This _definitely_ wasn't his dream. He had his issues with sex and he always would, but it wouldn't occur to him to imagine sleeping with Blair's naked body draped over his and him _not_ waking up hard as a rock. He'd spent most of their first marriage walking around with a constant erection.

_"You have access for recreational purposes only."_

"We'll have to get to that one of these days."

He scowled. Blair _would_ suddenly be willing for them to be together in every way when he wasn't able to do anything about it. For all he knew, he never would. His physical abilities had always returned in full after his past traumas, but that didn't mean it would happen this time.

"Where are my clothes?" asked Blair. The question came out as an angry growl, which was better than a humiliated whimper, at least.

He watched a shutter slam down behind Blair's eyes and wondered if he should have gone with the humiliated whimper.

"Clean ones in my bag." She pointed. "The ones you were wearing yesterday are still on the floor in the bathroom.

Todd ripped open the bag, extracted his clothes, and placed the bag beside Blair on the bed so she could get dressed, too.

He took himself into the bathroom to dress and was immediately hit by more sleepy images of the night before. Blair had been perfect and he had been a mess.

When he emerged, Blair had put on a sundress that showed off her long legs and pulled the quilt over the rumpled pink sheets. The room service cart had appeared and Blair was nibbling at a bowl of fruit.

"You need to eat more than that," Todd said roughly. "Even if chocolate chip pancakes aren't your thing any more." He scraped some eggs from the main plate onto a smaller one and pushed it in her direction. "Protein. You had a long day yesterday."

The rest of the eggs went straight into his mouth, followed by the toast and the bacon. When a blissfully satisfied sensation started to spread through him, he looked up at Blair. She was eating for real now, but she was watching him through her eyelashes as if she didn't know quite what to expect.

"I'm sorry for snapping before," he said. The food made the words come easier. "Yesterday sucked until you showed up."

Blair nodded. "How are you feeling?"

"Better."

He looked hard at Blair as she nodded again. She was fighting back tears.

"You crying because I could have died or because I'm gonna live?"

"Shut up," said Blair conversationally.

"We're in Key West," he announced, though that wasn't likely to surprise her like it had surprised him.

Indeed, she had no reaction to his revelation.

"We're in Key West, where we got married the first time. And we're in the honeymoon suite. You understand how a gentleman whose marriage proposal you recently refused might think he was getting mixed messages?"

"We have a lot to talk about before we make any decisions about that."

"Decisions about mixed messages?"

Blair ignored him and took another bite of her chocolate chip pancakes. Todd was pleased to see that she did seem to like them, still.

"Decisions about getting married?" Todd continued.

Blair swallowed. "There are things you don't know. Things that might change your mind about what you want."

Todd was well aware that there were things he didn't know. He'd spent the past four months learning one secret after another about the time that had been stolen from him. But he was pretty damn sure he knew exactly what he wanted. She was sitting three feet away from him.

"How about we take a walk on the beach and you tell me all about it?" A few days stuck in Irene's laboratory left him anxious to spend as much time in the sunshine and fresh air as possible.

A few minutes later, they were walking barefoot along the edge of the ocean. The sand and water felt wonderful against Todd's bruised feet, and Blair didn't object too much when he took her hand in his. "You checked us into the honeymoon suite," he reminded her. "People expect it. They'll be depressed if they think we aren't a happy couple! It'll be like we committed fraud. You don't want that, do you?"

"I'm not sure how much difference it makes what I want."

Todd rolled his eyes. "Enough with the maudlin defeatist crap, okay? Let's get to the deep dark secrets."

Blair was staring out at the turquoise-clear water instead of looking at Todd. "I don't know how much you understood yesterday when you first got out of there. Do you know that Irene is dead?"

An all-consuming wave of relief washed over Todd. He almost let himself fall to his knees in the water in boneless thanks to any deity that might have been involved. His children were safe. Blair was safe. Viki was safe. He was safe.

There was also the smallest twinge of regret for the woman who had once written a diary about how she loved and wanted her son Todd. But that Irene had been dead for far more than a day.

"That's great news," he told Blair. "Why would you worry about telling me that?"

"She was your mother."

"She gave birth to me. Bitsy was my mother," Todd corrected firmly. "Is the crazy bitch who locked you in the trunk of a car Sam's mother?"

"I still wouldn't want to tell Sam that I shot her."

Todd grabbed Blair by both wrists and turned her to face him. "You killed Irene?"

"I shot her," said Blair uncomfortably. "Technically, it was the crocodile that killed her. You know how when Starr was a little girl she used to go on and on about how crocodiles smell blood and they aren't too shy about approaching people-"

The laugh bubbled up from some deep place in Todd that he barely knew existed. This time, he did let himself fall into the shallow water, pulling Blair along with him despite her protesting shriek. Every muscle in his body shook with the ridiculous genius of it all.

"Tell me more," he instructed when he was able to speak again. "Start at the beginning. Did you shoot her on sight? Or did you talk to her first? Maybe sing Taps while it was eating her?"

"_Never Smile at a Crocodile_, actually. From _Peter Pan_. That's the last thing she heard."

Todd was laughing so hard that he couldn't tell whether his eyes were watering or being splashed by the sea. "That's brilliant. You're brilliant." He kissed Blair softly on the lips. He almost wished that they'd had this conversation inside after all so he could have made it a full-blown makeout session. Right this second, he didn't care if he was capable of finishing the job or not.

"Irene said you'd never forgive me." Blair's whisper was almost lost amongst the waves.

"Irene was not an expert on things I want in life." Todd stood up and offered his hands to Blair so he could pull her back to her feet, too. "Were you really worried that that would bother me?"

"No. Not really. I told Irene that I would rather lose you than let her hurt you or our children again. That that was how much I loved you." She leaned against Todd and Todd felt another shock of pleasure at the warmth of her body against him.

"I love you, too," he put in, because he was never going to miss an opportunity to say it again.

"I told Irene that all I wanted was to live happily ever after with you and the kids. Standing there thinking I might have lost you, and looking at the person who took you away, it made it hard to pretend that I'm ever going to want anyone or anything else. But I can't pretend that _you're_ not going to want anyone or anything else."

Todd decided that it would ruin the tone of the whole conversation to tell Blair that she was being stupid, and _he_ never hid behind the first Cord or Sam or Cristian who came along when things got rough between them. "I broke out of a paramilitary facility to get back to you. I risked my life on a raft in the middle of the ocean to get back to you. That doesn't tell you something about who I want?" Blair hesitated, and that pissed Todd off. In the last twenty years, he had made some of the grandest gestures to ever gesture grandly. Blair had no business doubting his love. "Don't confuse me with the other guy. He's not me. It's not fair."

"But I did. Not at first. Not- I want you to know I looked for you. I kidnapped Mitch Laurence and I had him tied up at La Boulaie. I was going to kill him if he didn't tell me where you were."

"And?"

Blair made a face. "Dorian let him go. Something about not wanting me to go down for murder. I went to the crypt, Todd, I did. He- Victor, when he had your memories- he said he heard me screaming for you. Is that true? Did I almost find you then?"

The near miss wasn't one of Todd's favorite memories, but he had held onto it with all the others. "Yes," he said honestly. "You did."

Blair started crying again. Todd tried to gather her close to him, but she shrugged away. "How can you look at me knowing that if I'd worked just a little bit harder, or been just a little bit smarter, none of that would have happened to you? How can you think it's a good idea to marry me?"

"Because nothing else other than marrying you has ever worked for me."

Blair was silent.

"You want me to say it made me angry? It did. It does. Doesn't mean I don't love you. Doesn't mean I think you did it on purpose. I'm not naive enough to think you're never going to hurt my feelings or I'm never going to fuck up and hurt you. I don't even know how messed up I am after everything Irene did."

Blair sniffled and steadied herself. "You do need a real physical, you know. Lab work. Screenings. Tetanus shot."

"Are you going to love me less if it turns out Irene gave me some kind of disease?"

"Of course not!" Blair's eyes widened with horror at the thought, and Todd felt a reassurance he hadn't known he'd needed. He nearly forgot that his point had been that he would always love Blair, not that she should always love him. "If she gave you a disease, we'll cure it. We'll get the best doctors in the world. We'll get the best medicines, whatever it takes. If you can't walk, we'll get you a wheelchair." She looked him straight in the eye. "If you can't have sex, you're giving me massages. And oral."

So she had figured out exactly what had been bothering him that morning. That was both humiliating and comforting.

"If you go blind, we'll get you a gorgeous seeing eye dog," Blair continued, letting Todd pretend that they hadn't just been talking about the state of his penis, and that if they had it had just been a random entry in an exhaustive list. "We should maybe get the dog anyway. Sam and Hope are old enough, and Dorian isn't around to be horrified."

Todd didn't think Dorian should be getting a vote in whether their children had a pet whether she lived in Llanview or Washington or (preferably) Antarctica, but he decided to leave the argument about moving out of La Boulaie for another time. The house was just a house, and if the Crazy Cramer Coven was the price he paid for moving in with Blair and their children, he would pay it.

"If we're making joint decisions about dogs, does that mean you'll marry me again?"

"I pretty much always do," Blair sighed.

It took Todd a minute to work out that she was teasing, but saying yes.

"You could sound a little bit more excited," he suggested.

"You could bring me flowers or something," she returned.

At the same time, they spotted a store on the road above the beach. Blair made subtle work of transferring a wad of bills from her pocket to his.

Todd just barely heard Blair say Starr's name as he charged toward the store, and just barely noticed her tucking her phone away when he returned at a dead run with a bouquet of flowers and a ring made from a seashell.

He dropped to his knee as he broke stride. "Blair," he said, knowing he had no chance of removing the stupid smile from his face. "I promise you I love you. I promise you I love Starr and Jack and Hope and that I will always love Sam like my own. I promise you I will always do everything I can to take care of you. And I promise to love you just a little bit more for the crocodile thing. He held out the ring. Will you?"

"I will." She let him put the ring on her finger, relieved him of the flowers, and tugged him off of his knees.

By now they had circled the beach and were back at their hotel. Todd was happy to see the now-made bed; the long walk and the short run had exhausted him. It took more than a day to recover from a stay at the Irene Manning Facility for Unwanted Sons, even with the undivided attentions of Nurse Blair.

"You talked to Shorty?" Todd asked as he lay down and adjusted the pillow under his head.

"Just checking in. They're all doing fine."

He'd made fast work of getting to the store, but Blair had been talking to Starr long enough for their daughter to say something more than "fine."

"Did you tell her we got engaged?"

"No. Wouldn't want Jack to know yet. We have to break it to him carefully. But Starr says Jack thinks he heard Allison Perkins talking to Irene over at Tea's house the night he snuck out."

Todd sat upright again. That was interesting news. "Where Allison goes, Mitch goes."

"And Allison's the only one left alive to tell us anything. Irene's dead, and Mitch died the night of the prison break."

"Did you shoot him, too?"

"Natalie did."

"So I don't get to do it. There's a reason she's my absolute least favorite niece." He wasn't going to go around praising Natalie, even though he sort of wanted to. It wouldn't be natural.

"She had a close call. That whole family did. But they're all okay. And Cole, too. The hospital fixed him right up and sent him back to prison."

"Poor Starr. Poor Hope."

"Cole's situation has never been easy on them. I'm glad that at least she decided not to marry him. She almost did a few years ago. Had the dress on and everything." Blair rolled her shoulders as if even the thought of Starr and Cole's relationship made her tense.

Todd smiled, not so tired any more. He walked close behind Blair, folded his hands over her shoulders, and squeezed. Her muscles were tight under his hands and she moaned with pleasure. The moan did him more good than the past day's rest and food put together. If he could make Blair moan like that, he knew he wasn't completely ruined.

"What are you doing?" Blair asked as he pushed her toward the bed.

"Let me do it for a while and see if you figure it out."

He wanted to trace over her body the way she had traced over his the night before. He wanted to reacquaint himself with her neck and her arms and her back...

"Why are you doing this?" Blair mumbled after a while.

"Didn't you just tell me you liked massages? Out on the beach?" He let his hand slip down her thighs and between them, just for a second. Then he removed it and whispered in her ear, "I could do that other thing you said you liked, too."

And even though Blair said that she wanted to wait a few more days before doing anything that strenuous, just the act of offering and being so close to giving made his pants tighten in response. He struggled to adjust himself without interrupting Blair's backrub.

All things considered, he was having an epicly good day.


	26. Chapter 26

Todd slept fitfully, but he did sleep. He slept more than Blair had ever known him to sleep, but since he seemed to be lucid and even happy when he was awake, she took it as a good sign. His body was healing and giving her a chance to sneak out onto the balcony and call Jack.

Jack—for once— answered on the first ring.

"Everything okay?" Jack asked. Blair hated that that was a perfectly reasonable greeting.

"Your father's doing better," Blair assured him, and tried to sense through the phone exactly what Jack's feelings for Todd were.

"When are you coming home?"

Blair longed for the times when she could have teased Jack about missing her like she missed him. At least she could remember those times. Todd had missed them entirely. "I was wondering if maybe you'd like to come down here and join us for a few days before we came home."

"To Key West?"

"You always wanted to run away and live on a tropical island." It was one of the few things Jack and Starr had in common anymore. They had both inherited their father's longstanding desire to be a beach bum.

"What's the catch?"

Blair would have been insulted, but Jack had a point. There was a catch of sorts. "You don't have to give us your blessing, but—"  
_  
"You're going to marry him?"_ Jack shouted.

Blair winced and held the phone away from her ear. She glanced through the window at Todd, but he did not seem to have heard anything.

"It's been, like, three months since he got back," Jack continued. "That's even faster than you married Eli. Not that's it's unusual. Remember how when Langston used to tell people about our family, she'd say 'Starr's parents can go out for pizza and come back married?'"

"Langston always had a way with words," Blair muttered. She was glad that her little cousin was too busy with school to continue on with her popular blog about life as a teenage girl. She didn't want to read the entry about Dorian's reaction to this.

"You don't even know this guy. You don't know what he's like now, after eight years."

"He said that to me, too."

Jack grunted in response.

"I know that he loves you and me and Starr and Sam. I know he'll do anything for us. And I know I love him back. That's enough."

"And my job is to be okay with that if I get a free island vacation out of the deal?"

Blair drew in a breath. They'd reached the moment of truth. "No. You have a choice about whether you come down here with Starr and Sam and Hope. And if you do come down here, all I'm asking you to do is be polite. You don't have to give us your blessing, but you can't interrupt the wedding to take potshots at your father or kick sand in the minister's eyes or pretend you saw a shark."

"Well, the tenth wedding to the same guy is supposed to be the shark wedding," said Jack sarcastically.

"We've been married fewer than ten times," Blair groused.

"I said wedding, not marriage."

"We've had fewer than ten weddings, too," said Blair, as she tried her best to count and make sure it was true. The three weddings to Victor definitely didn't count- especially not the one where he'd been calling himself Walker- so she was safe. "Anyway, our first wedding was on the beach here."

"Oh, the time you married him for his money."

Blair had been waiting for that and didn't acknowledge it. "It was just the two of us. No putting on a show for anyone else."

"Because you didn't want anyone to know you knew he was Victor Lord's son."

"It was like we were the only people who mattered. Now we have our kids, but I don't want to put on a show for anyone else. I don't need it. I don't want anyone there but our kids and Hope. It's no one's business but our family's."

"Does that include Sam?"

"Of course it does!"

"What about Dani?"

Blair sighed. That was more difficult. "I asked Starr to see if she could get Dani down here without Tea finding out why. If she can, she can. But Tea is very busy with Victor and I wouldn't want to add any stress onto that."

"They won't let us see Victor," Jack complained. "Only Starr because she's over 18. Not me. Not Sam, even though he's Victor's real son. Not even Dani, even though she's the one he cares about."

"He cares about all of you. In his way," Blair said, even though she had her doubts. She had spent the past eight years away from Todd and seeing Victor day in and day out. Ironically, Victor, not Todd, was the one she felt like she didn't know. "We'll find a way to get you in to see him once things settle down."

"So Starr already knows about this wedding," Jack said resentfully, letting the matter of Victor drop for the moment.

"I needed Starr to start making plans to get down here."

"Sure."

"I'm telling you the truth, Jack. I sent your father off to buy flowers and bought myself about three minutes to talk to her. You spent more than that just going over my past romantic history. I needed to wait until your father was asleep to talk to you."

"He's threatened by you talking to me? Maybe he's afraid I'll find out his secret like I did Eli's."

"I'm pretty sure you know his worst secrets. What he did to you when you were a baby was his worst secret."

"So he's just depressed because I won't throw myself at his feet and call him 'Daddy?'"

"No, but it was very nice of you to call him 'Dad' when you spoke to him yesterday. It meant a lot to both of us, especially under the circumstances."

Jack was reduced to grunting incoherently again. "Whatever."

"He doesn't know we're getting married while we're down here. He used to throw me surprise weddings. I think it's about time he saw that from the other side."

"So I could call the hotel and ask to speak to him and ruin the surprise."

"I think that if you felt like you had to do that after everything we've been through as a family in the past few months, we'd have bigger problems than whether I kept your father in the dark about a visit from his kids and a wedding. Don't you?"

"Whatever."

"Do you want to come?"

"Only because it's on a beach," Jack said. In the background, Hope shrieked, and Jack ended the call to see to her.

Blair really hoped that Jack hadn't provoked his niece so he wouldn't have to continue talking about the wedding. But even if he had, the conversation had gone as well as she could have hoped.

* * *

Starr trudged toward Victor's room in the long-term care facility with the weight of the world on her shoulders. She wasn't sure that she was ready to see Victor. She wasn't sure that she was ready to trick Tea into letting Dani go to Key West.

Hope had watched Hannah shoot Cole and was terrified. Cole was back in prison. James wanted nothing to do with her. She had no close friends in Llanview. The bulletin board outside the biology lab at school was covered with applications to take part in an expedition to the rainforest, but she couldn't go because she had a baby to raise. She had enough problems of her own.

Still, it wasn't as if Starr had ever considered refusing Blair's request. She had fought for her family since she'd been old enough to understand what a family was. Stopping now would have been unnatural.

Blair deserved this.

Todd deserved this.

"Estrella!"

Starr didn't have a chance to respond before Tea had enveloped her in a wet, sniffly hug. "I know Victor will be so happy to see you!" Tea continued.

"He's conscious?" Starr had gathered from Dani that Victor was more or less comatose. Starr's insides sank and she hated herself for it. If Victor was well, he would be back to setting Jack against their parents in no time. Starr didn't think she had the energy for another round of that. On the other hand, she couldn't very well wish for Victor to stay sick.

"No, not conscious. But he can hear what we're saying, I know he can. I've gotten Daniela to make some recordings so he can hear her voice even though the doctors don't want her in here. Do you think Jack and Sam could do the same?"

"Yeah, of course. We'll email you something this afternoon."

"Great. I know I can always count on you, Estrella."

And with that, Tea ushered Starr to the side of Victor's bed.

Starr stared at his pale form, smaller than it had ever seemed before, dwarfed by machines. "Hi, Uncle Victor. It's Starr," she began. "I know you're going to pull out of this just like you always have before." This was nothing new. She'd seen Victor near death many times. It was her real father who was invincible. It was her real father she wanted to talk to.

_Play this right and you'll have a present for Dad no one else can give him_, she reminded herself. "Jack is over the moon that you're alive. Sam never really believed you were dead. I guess we have to give him more credit, right? The both send their love. We're going on a trip soon, but we'll think of you the whole time and we'll be back next week. I just wish Dani could come with us, but she'll take care of Tea for you."

"Where are you going, Estrella?"

"A family vacation," said Starr nonchalantly. "Not a real vacation. Just a few days on the beach in Florida with Mom before we all bring Dad home. Dani's been telling Jack she'd teach him to surf practically since she met him, and Hope's been such a mess since everything happened with Cole..." It wasn't hard to make tears come to her eyes. Hope had spent most of the last week either crying or screaming, and there was nothing Starr could do about it but wait for Hope to realize that no amount of yelling would bring Cole back.

"Oh, Estrella!" Tea hugged her again. Starr tried not to cringe as her tears mixed with Tea's own. She resolved herself to recommit to her mission. "Dani's so good with Hope. She'd be such a big help. You know Jack isn't."

"Of course he's not," Tea agreed darkly.

"But Dani has to stay here and look out for you," Starr said, pulling back and nodding her head. "I'm not even going to invite her. It's selfish of me to even think about it when I know you couldn't spare her."

Tea didn't say anything. _Damn it_. Starr had thought that Tea would have been ordering Dani to join them on the plane to Florida by now.

She was going to have to play her riskiest card.

"My Mom, she could always handle things on her own or with the Cramer women," Starr tried. "So she was really great about letting me go on trips and everything. But I know you don't have that kind of support system, so Dani being here is more important."

Starr turned to leave. She had laid it on too thick with the last one. Tea, defense attorney that she was, was a master at mind games; undoubtedly she had seen through Starr's ploy. She would have to be completely blinded by her latent rivalry with Blair to-

"Wait."

Starr turned around.

"You're only going for a few days?"

"Yes," Starr agreed even though she and Blair hadn't finalized the schedule. "Back for school on Tuesday."

"I'm spending most of my time in here with Victor and Daniela isn't old enough to join us. Maybe the best thing would be for her to spend some time with her brothers and sister and go surfing."

"Really?"

"Really. I'll call her right now and tell her to go. You go find her in case I can't talk her into it myself."

Starr plastered a watery smile onto her face. "I'll do that."

"Thank you, Estrella."  
_  
"My pleasure,"_ Starr muttered under her breath.

The most difficult part of the wedding plan was complete.


	27. Chapter 27

Blair made the excuse of going out for ice and met Starr in the stairwell early in the morning on October 31. Starr had texted to let her know that all five assorted children were safely ensconced in a suite three doors down from her own. Blair had had a hard time resisting the urge to sneak over there in the middle of the night and hug the stuffing out of them.

She settled for clinging to Starr as they tried to swallow their laughter and shush each other simultaneously.

"You're all definitely ready for this?" Blair whispered at last.

"I told you we were. Dad's really up to this?"

"If I think he's not, I'll text you and you get rid of the minister. You and Jack will keep your mouths shut and we'll just have a day on the beach instead."

"And Dad won't be suspicious about the matching dresses?" Starr was already wearing hers. It was bright yellow in color, befitting a shining star- or a gold balloon.

"We'll tell him that we decided to go in costume as a functional family for Halloween."

Starr's eyes were suddenly too bright. "It feels almost like we're there. Like we could all be happy. I know Jack hasn't really decided what he thinks, and we're lying to Dani about why we're here, and Hope is still shattered about losing Cole, and who knows what Sam's dad is going to do when he's feeling better, but..."

Starr trailed off and Blair hugged her again. "I know, Starr."

"I'm glad this wedding's a secret. Like maybe we can sneak in being a happy family under the radar."

Blair didn't quite know what to say to that, so she was glad when Starr pulled a box out of her purse. "Here are the earrings you wore to the premiere."

"Thank you."

"And I know you said those were the ones you wanted, but then I found these when I was picking up the dresses."

Starr opened a second box to reveal a delicate pair of golden earring shaped like balloons. Different colors reflected off of the bubble of the balloon, and the diamond-studded "string" of the balloon dangled playfully beneath the bubble.

"They're perfect!" Blair exclaimed.

"Good!" said Starr. "Because I bought almost the same thing for Dani and Hope and me, and it's all on your credit card. But I didn't go over the limit."

"It doesn't have a limit."

Starr beamed. "I know." She shoved the almost-forgotten bucket of ice into Blair's hands. "Now go before Dad figures out what's going on."

* * *

It was hard to regain a sense of time. Eight years with Irene had blended together into one blurry, nasty mess. He had just been starting to settle into a rhythm again- The Sun hit the streets at midnight, the kids were in school Monday through Friday- when the prison break and his unscheduled trip to Florida had twisted everything around again.

Todd was shocked, then, when he saw that the complimentary newspaper (if you wanted to call USA Today a newspaper) sitting on the desk was dated October 31.

"It's Halloween?" he asked Blair.

Blair didn't seem to be too concerned for someone who had always liked the holiday almost as much as Todd did. "Yeah, I guess it is," she said casually.

"Do you think we can get back to Llanview in time to take the kids trick-or-treating? Or to take Jack out to TP the Buchanan place?"

"Sure," she said, but her focus was on the clothes she was holding. She offered them to him: army-green button down shirt and plain khaki slacks. They were too formal for the beach, too casual for making a million dollar deal, and too boring for almost anything else. He put them on with a mental note that he had to get back to buying his own clothes as soon as possible.

"I really want to see the kids for Halloween. You don't think Starr changed her mind about that peanut costume for Hope, do you?"

"Don't think so." Blair finally flashed a grin, getting into the spirit of things. "Sam's costume is just as good. He's going to be Jaws."

"We should've brought them all down here."

"Yeah, we should have."

"It could have been a family thing," Todd said, more sorry for the missed opportunity by the minute. "Remember when Starr was a baby and you and she had matching witch costumes?"

"Some people would say I wasn't in costume that year."

"That angel costume for Starr might still be my favorite. Oh, and the year she was a nun and she wouldn't let me propose to you in peace."

Blair shrugged. "Well, at least you learned something. You got down on your knees this time." She held up her left hand to show him that she was wearing her shell ring.

"At least this year, you're not dressing up like Marilyn Monroe to seduce David fucking Vickers." Jealousy flared up in Todd at the memory. Blair was all his again, looking delicious in a pale yellow sundress, and he wasn't wasting any time.

Todd leaned in to run his lips over Blair's neck, ready to make sure that Blair knew she was his in every way.

Blair laughed and sidestepped toward the mirror, where she fussed with her makeup.

He followed her closely and slid his hand around her waist. "I'm just going to mess it up again," he promised roughly in her ear.

Blair remained singularly oblivious to his intentions even though she should have been able to feel his arousal prodding the small of her back. "Don't do that. We'll be late."

"Late for what?"

"I want to take one last walk on the beach before we go see the kids." She turned around with pleading green eyes. "Is that okay?"

"If that's what you want."

"It is." She bounced away gleefully, and Todd was so happy to see her happy that he almost felt a little bit less frustrated.

They were in the honeymoon suite of one of the most expensive hotels on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Everything about the room- from the silk sheets on the bed to the champagne glasses on the table to the hot tub in the bathroom- screamed sex. Sex like he hadn't had in eight years (closer to nine if he really wanted to be accurate about it, but he didn't).

And Blair, who had always been more in touch with her body and the pleasure that could come from it than anyone else on the planet, didn't seem interested. He knew she'd been attracted to him the day they'd almost torn each other's clothes off in the living room at La Boulaie. Hell, he'd known it the day he had shown himself to her and kissed her at the premiere.

Maybe it was that this room was where she had put him back together after Irene had tried to take him apart one last time. Maybe Blair couldn't look at him here without seeing him filthy, bruised, and shaken.

Maybe she wasn't going to be able to look at him without seeing him like that again.

Maybe she'd made that request for a muff dive just to mess with his head.

Or maybe she was holding back because she was still concerned that he wouldn't be able to follow through and he'd just have to pick her up, throw her on the bed, and-

"Todd?"

Blair had the door open and beckoned him to follow her. He did.

When they reached the beach, he walked toward the ocean, but Blair nudged him back toward drier ground.

"Are you afraid of getting wet all of a sudden?" he asked irritably.

"I'm not afraid of anything."

"Okay..." he answered slowly, because Blair seemed to think that she had just said something significant and he wasn't following her at all.

"Well, I'm afraid of one thing. I'm afraid of losing more time with you. I'm ready for us to face everything head on. Together." She held up her hand again and twisted the shell ring around her finger. "I want us to get married here today. Like we did the first time, without any pretense. No tricks, no lies, no complications."

"The first time we got married you were pretending to be pregnant with my baby because you wanted a piece of the inheritance I didn't know I had!"

"Details," said Blair. She produced two more rings from her purse and held them out for Todd to see.

He knew without asking that she had designed them herself. Two bands of yellow gold with diagonal slashes encircled one band of white gold with slashes at right angles. Blair's taste had always leaned toward the sharply contemporary.

"I like the two colors together," Blair explained. "When Starr was a little girl and her favorite color was pink, you told her that she was pink because you were red and I was white, and that together we made something prettier than we were."

Todd recoiled at the memory. The fake D.I.D. after taking half of Llanview hostage had not been his finest moment.

"I don't know about me being white. That's the color of purity and innocence and a lot of things I never was," she continued.

"The color of snow," Todd told her. "Like when you made me take you sledding on those trays."

Blair smiled at the memory. "All right, the white is for me. The gold is for you because ever since you showered me with gold balloons after our second wedding I've been trying to get back to that place."

"Me too." That was where he went more often than anywhere else when he had to separate his mind from the body Irene was attacking. The sparkle of Blair's earrings caught his eye, and he brushed her hair aside to look at them. "I see you brought your own gold balloons this time. Did you also bring a marriage license?"

"That's taken care of." She took his hand and led him around a rocky cove to a more isolated corner of beach. "But it wasn't me who chose the earrings."

"Am I supposed to ask who it was?" The words hadn't left his mouth before he saw the answer. For a fraction of a second, he thought he must be imagining his Shorty the way he had imagined her so many times during his captivity. The pieces fell into place even before Starr could fling herself at him.

No wonder Blair hadn't been bothered by missing Halloween with the kids; no wonder she had ignored his advances in the hotel room; no wonder she had chosen the clothes she had. His wife and his daughter had planned this for him and he hadn't had a clue.

Without letting go of Starr, Todd knelt down so he would be at eye level with Sam, who was already grabbing at his legs. Starr's and Sam's voices overlapped in a beautiful cacophony.

"Dad, I'm so happy to see you."

"Uncle Todd, we match!" (Sam's shirt, though it had a playful pattern, was the same color as Todd's.)

"You're really all right?"

"Can we go swimming?"

"All I've wanted to do for the last week is talk to you."

"Wait 'til you see my costume!"

"I missed you so much!"

"We're having a picnic!"

It was just as good as Blair had promised that it would be when she'd cleaned him up after their arrival in Key West. She had told him that Starr and Sam would be all over him.

She hadn't mentioned Jack.

Todd stopped trying to follow Starr and Sam's words and looked over their heads. Sure enough, Jack was watching them with an ambivalent look on his face.

Jack tried to pretend he hadn't been standing there staring as soon as his eyes locked with Todd's. He took one long stride forward and held out his hand for Todd to shake, like they were at some God-awful charity event or something. "I'm glad you're okay."

Todd grabbed Jack's hand and pulled him into a quick hug, whether Jack liked it or not. "I'm not giving you my blessing, but I'm giving you a chance," Jack said into Todd's ear.

"That's all I'm asking for," Todd told him.

The four of them walked further into the cove, where the beatifically-smiling officiant stood beside a cooler, on top of which sat Hope. Her golden dress complimented her mother's and grandmother's like something out of a fairy tale, but her face was petulant and sullen.

"Hope hasn't been doing too well," Starr explained.

"I can see that," said Todd. He looked down at Hope. "But your Grandpa Todd promises you'll have lots of fun today." He grabbed her by the hips and swung her through the air in a circle. Hope shrieked out a laugh, and Todd put her back down beside her mother.

"That's the first time I've heard you laugh since Grandpa left," Starr told Hope. Todd heard the unspoken meaning. The first time I've heard you laugh since Cole left. Another little girl was going to grow up without her father.

He swallowed hard. This wasn't the time for those memories. Only good memories today.

He reached for Blair's hand, ready to tell the officiant to get a move on before Blair changed her mind, and only then did he notice the final member of their party.

Tea must have been damn grateful to get Victor back if she had been willing to let Danielle join them.

"... Thank you for including me," Danielle was saying to Blair.

"You're my stepdaughter! I wouldn't remarry your father without inviting you. You belong here." Blair caressed Danielle's hair. Todd knew that Blair loved children and hated to see one feel left out or unwanted, but Blair's apparent genuine fondness for Danielle would never not be weird.

"I didn't even know what this was about until this morning when I saw the matching clothes. Starr just told me it was a vacation, she didn't tell me it was a wedding. I didn't bring-"

"All your father and I wanted you to bring was yourself," said Blair, pointedly catching Todd's eye.

"Thank you for coming, Danielle," Todd parroted obediently. He patted the girl awkwardly on the shoulder. He didn't know what to make of her. Jack was difficult, but somehow Todd could usually sense how to handle him. This child? Not at all.

"I'm glad you're feeling better," said Danielle, clinical and awkward as Todd himself. He turned gratefully to the minister and asked to get started. Starr scrambled to arrange her siblings and Blair took Todd's arm.

The minister began the ceremony Todd had heard too many times.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here before these friends and family, to join together this man and this woman in Matrimony, which is an honorable and beautiful estate, and therefore is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but instead with love, respect, friendship, and honor. Into this estate these two persons present come now to be joined..."

This time, there would be no screwing it up. No giving away babies, no pretend mob hits, no hairy Irish poets.

He found himself making it through the repeat-after-me portion only because his lips were able to mimic the officiant's words without input from his brain. Eight years of sameness left it hard for him to understand that the world could change so quickly. One hour before, he had had no idea that he would be standing here with his children beaming angelically- or, in the case of Jack, at least looking basically neutral- while he and Blair promised to love each other forever.

When Blair put the ring she had made on his finger, it fit like it had always belonged there.

"... I now pronounce you husband and wife. It's Key West, don't be shy."

They'd heard the same joke at their first wedding twenty years before. Todd had not known that it was some kind of Key West tradition to say it. He'd been hesitant to kiss Blair then because he'd really had no idea what their relationship was supposed to be.

Now he knew exactly what their relationship was supposed to be, if only they could manage not to mess it up too often. Nonetheless, he spared their children and grandchild- grandchild!- front row seats to a full-on makeout session. He kept the kiss chaste, but even that created stirrings deep in his body that left him more than anxious to make this marriage real in every way.

But first, the minister had to be thanked and sent along.

Next, the picnic basket had to be opened to reveal fruit salad (the cost of having girls in the family, he supposed), cold fried chicken (his mouth watered- he hadn't had that since he'd been back), potato chips, and what looked to be two bottles of wine. Todd raised his eyebrows. He had missed a lot, but he was pretty sure that he had not missed any of these children growing old enough to acquire alcohol legally. When a lifeguard strolled by to reprimand them for having wine on the beach, Starr held up one bottle to demonstrate that it was sparkling cider.

Todd grabbed for the other. Sure enough, it was the real thing.

"I have my ways," said Starr with a shrug. Before he could force the issue, she was on about how she, Jack, and Dani were taking Sam and Hope trick-or-treating at the mall as soon as lunch was over.

"And there's a horror movie festival tonight. Aunt Dani is having a girl's night with Hope, and the boys and I are going to see Psycho and Alien on the big screen. So you two," Starr gestured at Todd and Blair, "will have to entertain yourselves."

Sam and Hope saw nothing odd about this. Danielle stared at the sand, embarrassed. Jack shoved a chicken leg into his mouth, looking sickened. Todd tried not to choke. Blair suggested that perhaps they would all go trick-or-treating together, but Starr made it plain that her parents were not invited.

Starr then oversaw the wrestling of Sam and Hope out of their wedding clothes and into their costumes (Blair had been right; the Jaws costume was genius), and collected her siblings for the trek to the mall.

That left Todd and Blair alone to wander back to their hotel with the wine warm in their veins. One of the odd things about eight years of forced captivity, Todd reflected, was that he could feel halfway to drunk on a couple of glasses of wine.

As soon as the elevator doors closed behind them, Todd pulled Blair into the thorough kiss he had wanted to give her on the beach. As if in response, the elevator shuddered and screamed.

Todd wanted to scream himself as he determined that the doors were jammed. "I told you that first night," he said. "I told you this elevator didn't feel right."


	28. Chapter 28

Blair assured the apologetic manager who answered the elevator's emergency phone that they would be fine for twenty minutes until the elevator technician had arrived and worked his magic.

"Speak for yourself," Todd muttered. He had turned away from her and pressed his forehead into the corner.

"You don't think Irene did this, do you?" Blair queried.

"No," said Todd without moving his head. "I think I did this."

"Okay." Blair leaned against her side of the elevator to await what she assumed would be a classic Todd Manning explanation. "How?"

"By being too happy."

"Sorry, Todd. You don't get to win the most pathetic contest on your wedding day. If you try, I'm going to be offended."

"I'm serious!" snapped Todd. "I should have known it was a bad sign when everything seemed perfect. You actually wanted to marry me enough to set up that whole wedding without me even knowing."

"I wanted to marry you every time we got married," Blair said quietly. "I wanted to be married to you every time we got divorced, too."

"All the kids were there," Todd continued. "Starr's still my Shorty. Hope and Sam have gotten to know me. Even Jack is coming around. No one was there to say we shouldn't or we couldn't or we weren't good enough. No secrets. There's nothing hanging over me that I haven't told you. I haven't stood in front of you with everything on the table since before I went to Ireland. You know everything and you wanted me."

"And when this elevator gets unstuck, I won't want you any more?"

"Think about it! We were going to go upstairs to... do things. There's a reason fate stopped us."

"Fate stopped us from making love?"

"That's such a cheesy expression. What are you, twelve?"

"So sorry, Mr. Professional Writer, who just called it 'doing things.'"

"I'm a media mogul. I'm not a writer."

"I always thought you looked sexy when you wrote," Blair told him honestly. "Especially when you'd pull your hair back in a ponytail because you were concentrating. Thinking. Putting things together." She crossed the elevator and pressed herself against Todd's back to whisper in his ear. There was nothing like a little tease before the main event. "Fighting. Scheming. Taking care of us and telling the world. Very sexy."

Todd spun out of the corner so quickly that she barely knew that he had touched her before he had them on opposite sides of the elevator again. "Don't."

"Why?" She looked at her watch. "We've got time." It was starting to occur to her that, in fact, they had exactly the right amount of time. Todd might be right about fate being involved. Fate might be telling them to do something a lot more fun than making lemonade out of lemons.

"Because," Todd said tightly. "Because I was ready for us to go upstairs."

Blair couldn't help laughing. She was eager, too; the aching inside her was getting hard to ignore. Now she had the perfect, magnanimous justification for starting early. If they were on an elevator repair-induced deadline, Todd could brush off any rustiness as a need to get things finished before their rescuer appeared.

"It's not funny," Todd told her.

"I agree," Blair said as calmly as she could. Todd still wasn't watching her as she slipped her panties down her legs and into her purse. The panties weren't especially good honeymoon ware, anyway. She hadn't risked donning more exotic lingerie when the ocean breezes might have flipped up her skirt in the presence of her young sons. Then she placed her purse on the floor gave herself a final once-over in the mirror. Everything looked to be in order.

"Todd," she directed, "Turn around and face me."

The sound of her own heart pounding filled her ears when he obeyed. Slowly, she raised her right leg off the ground and balanced it over Todd's shoulder. The air felt cool as it slapped her between her legs as if to announce that she was offering her body to Todd. He already had her heart and soul.

Todd closed his eyes and inhaled sharply; his face flushed and the cords of his neck tensed. Blair didn't think he needed any more convincing, but she ran her fingertips under his shirt and over his stomach, down towards the buckle of his belt. "_Blair_." Halfway between a groan and a whimper, her name had never sounded so good.

"We've still got fifteen minutes," she told him. "There's a lot of things we can do in fifteen minutes."

"Yeah," Todd gulped. "I mean, no."

"You can't think of a way to spend fifteen minutes?" Blair asked innocently.

"Our first time is not going to be in an elevator." Todd's body spasmed as if he meant to move away from her. Blair grabbed onto him to hold her balance, and the result was Todd's pelvis crushing into hers. Even with the fabric of his slacks and underwear between them, the brief contact sent butterflies into Blair's stomach and numbness into her hands. A tremor shot through her body as it demanded more.

"Not our first time," Blair pointed out. "We've been in stables, and limousines, and airplanes, and-"

"I remember that," Todd growled. His hand was inching toward his belt as if of its own volition.

"Love isn't all hearts and flowers. We don't have to plan everything. We didn't plan to be together that night you sat next to me in Rodi's. Sometimes things just happen."

"Anyone could walk in." His hand was on his belt now.

"Not if you hurry up." She hadn't meant for her words to come out as a breathy pant, but it was enough. Todd, with his hands shaking hard, unzipped his fly. "Now!" she commanded. She was hot and wet and achy and it had been too long.

She bit her tongue to keep from screaming when his fingers probed her to make sure she was ready. She'd _been_ ready. She didn't need him to drag his finger back and forth, now a little deeper, now a little to the left, now tracing circles toward the top like _he_ was the one seducing _her_.

Then, in a swift, hard movement that belied any of her concerns about rust, both of his hands were encircling her waist and he was inside of her.

She was suddenly stretched and full, like Todd was touching parts of her that hadn't been touched since he'd vanished almost nine years before. She only managed to last a few thrusts before bringing her leg down from his shoulder and wrapping it around his hip instead. Todd kissed her and laughed against her mouth. "Good. Don't be a hero."

"That a challenge?" she murmured as she tugged at his shirt to get her hands on his bare back and sides.

"No. Not saying I wasn't impressed. You can show me more about how flexible you are later."

He was still teasing her.

Two could play at that game. From her newly stable position, it was easier for her to rain kisses over his mouth and cheek and up to his ear. She sucked the lobe into her mouth; in response, he hissed and slid deeper and faster into her. Every time he slid out, she was bereft; every time he slid in she was closer to losing her mind.

Perhaps she should not have talked Todd into this, she reflected hazily. Perhaps the doors would fly open and she wouldn't care that they had an audience because she couldn't feel anything but the burning where too much wasn't enough. If the doors opened, she'd throw them both down on the floor so she could feel his whole body against her.

He had his hand between her legs to accentuate what the rest of him was doing, and when he stopped suddenly she almost protested. Then she saw his face, taut and melting and powerless. An instant later a hot stream shot into her; her body spasmed in a response more of relief than ecstasy.

They had just enough time to straighten their clothes and hair before strong hands forced the doors open from the outside.

Blair managed to accept the apology in a cordial sort of way before they scrambled frantically for their room.

She tore at Todd's shirt, mindless of the buttons that broke in protest while he pulled her dress over her head. They staggered toward the bed, tumbling onto it in a mix of laughter at what they'd just done and a mind bending need to do it again. Todd let Blair remove his pants and underwear to leave them equally naked, but then he pushed her to the edge of the bed and fell to his knees beside it. His hands and tongue went straight between her legs, touching her everywhere but _there_, where she needed it urgently.

She twisted her hips to move his fingers to the right place, but he responded by removing his hand and straddling her.

He was (still? again? she hadn't gotten a good look yet) aroused, and this time when he entered her body exploded almost immediately. She barely came back to herself enough to kiss him deeply and roughly before his second release.

They lay side by side on the bed until their breathing returned to normal. Todd chuckled and tugged the quilt out from beneath them so they could crawl into the soft, silk sheets. "That wasn't how I meant this to be," he told Blair ruefully as he traced his hand around her breasts, caressing the soft curves and teasing the nipples.

"I thought it worked out pretty well for both of us," Blair reflected. She felt content and safe, boneless and satisfied, stretched and exhilarated. His hand was on her stomach now, stroking it softly.

"I missed your body. Every bit of it." He leaned over to kiss her collarbone. "I want you to feel that."

"I did feel it." It was absolutely true. "We'll go slow next time," she promised. She played with the hair on his chest. "Do you still think fate is punishing you for being too happy?"

He pulled her closer so that she was almost on top of him and could feel his chest vibrate as he spoke. "It's hard not to worry. When everything is this good, there's no way for it to get better. It can only get worse."

Blair caressed him with the silk sheet and with her lips. "I'll show you how it can get better. Slowly."

They began their third round of lovemaking, this time getting in all the kisses and caresses they had missed.

* * *

Todd couldn't do much but bask in the feeling of exhausted emptiness. He had been too lonely for too long. His fear and pain and shame had vanished. Blair had taken away everything that was bad and given him everything that was good. The very blood in his veins felt like it was cleaner and more free-flowing.

His stomach growled. It felt empty, too, but less pleasantly so than his nether regions.

"Want to order nachos and beer and sit in that stupid tacky hot tub and eat them?" Blair asked.

Blair was full of good ideas.

"I love you," he told her.

"You love anyone who offers you beer."

"Not true. While John McBain will always have a special place in my heart for giving me my first beer after I got back to Llanview, I can honestly guarantee that I will never get naked in a hot tub with him."

"That's the sign of true love?"

He kissed her. "Yes, it is."

The food turned out to be complementary because the hotel felt bad about the thing with the elevator, even though Todd told them that it had been no problem at all.

The hot water did wonders for the parts of his body that ached either from Irene's beatings or his recent, more pleasurable exertions. He reflected that they should probably have sex three times a day for the next twenty years or so to make up for lost time. After that they could reduce it to twice a day.

He nodded to himself, decision made.

"What were you just thinking about?" Blair demanded.

"The rest of our lives," he told her.


	29. Chapter 29

The magic of being as physically close to Blair as humanly possible didn't extend to making Todd capable of a good night's sleep. Instead, he was restless, rousing himself every ten minutes to make sure that Blair was still beside him. When woke up shaking and thrashing, a heartbeat away from screaming as Baker muscled him into the chair, he decided that he was done trying and extricated himself from the tangled, sweaty sheets.

Blair, for her part, was still sleeping like a rock with a shit-eating grin on her face. He liked to think that she was dreaming of the previous afternoon. It was a shame he couldn't join her.

He wandered onto the balcony with the intention of playing with Blair's phone (he still hadn't quite mastered the new technology) until the sun came up. If the sunrise was particularly spectacular, he would wake Blair to share it with him.

As he settled in, he looked hard for threats. If someone was planning to hurt them, where would he be hiding? Could he hear the click of a trigger or a whispered order? Was the scent of gasoline or dynamite on the air?

His heart began to race before he even knew why. There was movement below him. The waves were higher than usual; that wasn't saying much, since Key West waters were about as calm as waters could be. Additionally, some idiot was dragging a surfboard through the darkness toward the still none-too-large waves.  
_  
Ross Rayburn._ Why would he be here? Todd knew from personal experience that the man's loyalty was for sale. If he planned to kidnap Todd's children, well, it wouldn't be the first time. He scrambled to the spare key to the kids' suite.

On second thought, no. Ross Rayburn was dead; Tea had spat that at him during one of her rants about Danielle. He squinted harder into the darkness. The figure was too female to be Ross, and too young.

It was Danielle.

It figured that she had Ross' particular swagger. Ross had raised her, and that could mean more than DNA. Sometimes, when Jack pushed Todd to the edge, Todd could feel Peter Manning's voice threatening to leap out of his throat. Hell, Peter was with him now, asking whether Danielle _wanted_ to get herself killed by going down to the ocean alone in the middle of the night or whether she was just stupid.

Tea would make sure Todd would never have a moment's peace if anything happened to Danielle.

It wasn't like it had been Todd's idea to bring Danielle down to Key West, anyway, but Tea wouldn't care. Tea wouldn't care that if Danielle was fine with remembering Ross as her beloved adoptive father and Victor as her beloved stepfather, that was fine with Todd, too.

He sighed.

He would have to leave the honeymoon suite where his beautiful wife lay sleeping wrapped in silk sheets to go make sure Tea Delgado's idiot daughter didn't get herself killed.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Todd was parked on the beach close enough to drag Danielle out of the water if she ran into trouble. As time wore on, he allowed himself to be impressed with her skill on the surfboard. The waves weren't much, but she always managed to catch the biggest one and stay upright for longer than she really should have.

She didn't notice him until she'd been up and down a dozen times and gray light was beginning to coat the beach.  
_  
I could've been anyone, you stupid girl. I could have been a kidnapper or a child molester... or a rapist._

Danielle at least had the brains to startle hard and wasted no time dragging her board from the water. He stood up and walked to the water's edge; it was then that she recognized him.

"Would your mother like it if she knew that you were out in the ocean by yourself in the middle of the night?" he asked her without bothering with pleasantries.

"There's a hurricane passing by a hundred miles away," she protested. "This was the only time the waves were going to get big enough to even pretend to surf."

"I'll take that as a 'no, Counsellor Delgado would be going for the maximum penalty of grounding for a month, Your Honor.'"

Danielle made a face and set down her surfboard. "She's so worried about Victor. She spends every minute with him and he doesn't get better. She doesn't need to worry about this, too," Danielle wheedled. "Besides, I'm fine. No harm, no foul."

Todd made an effort not to roll his eyes. All teenagers were the same. "Sit down," he told her. She dropped to the sand beside him. "I'm not going to upset your mother, but I want to know why you thought this," and he gestured at the ocean, "was a good idea."

"I didn't," Danielle said bluntly. "But I miss the water so much." She sighed heavily. "Llanview's nice and all, but Pennsylvania's a landlocked state. You can hardly go anywhere in Tahiti and not see the ocean." Her wistfulness was palpable, and Todd started to feel sorry for her even though she had taken him away from his naked wife in the early hours of the morning.

"You miss it?" he asked unnecessarily.

"So much. I mean," she added hastily, "I love Starr and Sam and mostly I love Jack. Destiny is, like, the best friend anyone ever had. But every day I wish I could talk Mom into taking Dad- Victor- to a rehab hospital there. There is one, you know. I think being away from all of the stress of Llanview would help him. I know it would help me. We knew everyone there. We had this huge support system. I belonged like I know I'm never going to belong anywhere else. I feel closer to Dad- my first D- I mean, Ross, there. Next year will be my senior year of highschool and I feel like I miss the school I started with, you know?"

"You're a junior?" Todd demanded. Jack was a sophomore; he was sure of that. Danielle had been conceived after Jack; he was sure of that, too.

"I started young and then I skipped a grade." Danielle gave him a what-can-you-do shrug. "When I was little, Mom was always pushing me to be the best, to be the smartest. I think she would have had me in college by the time I was nine years old if Ross hadn't stepped in. It was the worst fight I ever heard them have right up until she said I wasn't his. He said there was so much more to life than what I could learn from a book and that if she wasn't careful she would steal that from me. He threw my math book on the floor, picked me up over his shoulder, and carried me out onto a speedboat."

"I can picture it," said Todd. He could.

"I was worried about Mom the whole time, but it felt so good out there on the water. I miss it," she repeated. "These last couple of years have been a roller coaster, and they've been great, but I'm ready to get off." She looked up from the sand and nailed Todd with a gaze that was very like Tea's. "I don't mean anything personal. I'm not ready to go through father number three with _anyone_. You could be the President of the United States and Ghandi rolled into one. But I think you said in jail back in Llanview that you weren't all that interested in having a kid whose mother isn't Blair, either."

"That's not what I meant," Todd said, even though that was basically what he'd meant. The kid wasn't as big a fool as he'd feared she might be.

"You said you had to leave Mom and me and Ross on that island because you had to get back to your family. That implies that _I'm_ not your family," she said with the air of a girl who had been listening to closing arguments before she learned to talk.

"I'm never going to be your father the way Ross was or even the way Victor was. But if there is ever anything in this world that you want- whether it's money or a door opened or a safe place to stay or answers to questions- I want you to come see me. I swear that to you. I will move heaven and earth to get you what you need. And since right now, that's a move to Tahiti, I won't stand in your way. I'll help you convince your mother if you want."

"Don't. She doesn't trust you."

"So I'll tell her I want you to stay in Llanview so we can get to know each other. She'll be hauling you off to Tahiti in no time."

Danielle laughed humorlessly. "Aunt Viki said you were funny."

"You get along with your Aunt Viki?" he asked needlessly. Everyone loved Queen Victoria, except for Dorian, and Dorian's dislike was the best endorsement of all.

"Yeah. She's doing great. The bullet really didn't do any damage, she's home already-"

"_WHAT_?" Todd exploded. Danielle cringed away from him, but he didn't care. "What bullet? What the hell did Blair not bother to tell me when she was asking me to marry her?"

It was both endearing and aggravating that Danielle's first instinct was to protect Blair. "She probably didn't know," Danielle tried. "She took off after you right in the middle of the prison break. It probably hadn't even happened yet when she left, and then it was hard to get through to Llanview by phone- she was barely even in touch with Starr-"

Todd was already thumbing through the list of contacts on Blair's phone for Viki's number. "You said she's home already?" he snarled.

"Yeah," said Danielle. She inched further away, and Todd waved his hand at the ocean. "Go back to what you were doing," he ordered, and Danielle and her surfboard obeyed.

* * *

"Blair?" Viki's voice was full of sleep, but Todd didn't care. It served Viki right for getting shot and letting him sit down here on a beach without knowing. "Is everything all right? Starr said that you said that Todd was better, but we were so worried."

"This _is_ Todd," he growled.

"Todd!" The phone almost shook with delight. Viki either hadn't noticed or didn't care that he sounded like he was ready to rip out the jugular of the next person who pissed him off. "How are you?"

"_I'm_ not the one who got shot," he said with naked accusation. "I'm not even the one who got told his sister got shot until five minutes ago. You know what, why don't you hold on while I go kill Blair? I could put you on speakerphone while I do it."

"Todd!" This time, Viki switched over to her appalled, lecturing tone. Todd found that infinitely more soothing than the happy tone. If Viki was lecturing, Viki was in good form. "Does it occur to you that Blair might have been trying to do what was best for you? That Blair may not have even known what was happening in Llanview while she was down there in Florida taking care of you?"

"What is best for me is never going to be not knowing when someone I love is in trouble. I don't love that many people. It shouldn't be hard to keep track."

"I love you, too, Todd," said Viki. "And I'm very glad to know that you're feeling well enough to be completely pigheaded and ungrateful."

"And here I was just thinking that I was glad to hear that you were well enough to be superior and condescending. Who shot you, anyway?"

Viki sighed with irritation. "Allison Perkins. She shot me while announcing that it's practically impossible for a woman to give birth to twins fathered by two different men."

Todd shrugged. "Well, yeah. We always knew that. It's not like it was your fault."

"It may have been my fault in a way I never considered."

Todd jumped to his feet with such fury that Danielle, watching him from a distance, nearly tumbled off her surfboard. "What Mitch Laurence did to you was in no way, shape, or form-"

"That's not what I meant, Todd! If you want to know what's been happening in Llanview, be quiet and let me tell you."

"I'll stop yelling if you'll stop being stupid," Todd suggested. "How come everyone but me is stupid lately?"

"I've been more stupid than you know."

"Don't call yourself stupid. That's the stupidest thing you can do." This was met with silence. "I mean, please, Viki, go on with your story while I sit here quietly and listen."

"Thank you, Todd. That's very generous of you."

She paused for long enough that Todd wondered if this was some kind of trick to get him to talk so she could tell him to shut up again.

"Allison told us that Mitch wanted to be Jessica's father and she didn't want to tell him otherwise. So over the years, she tricked everyone- including Mitch- into believing that that was the case."

Todd's heart sped up with hope for Jessica. "You mean it wasn't?"

"Jessica is Clint's and my daughter. Natalie and Jessica are both our daughters. Our beautiful twins."

"Have they stopped pulling each other's hair out long enough to celebrate?" Todd asked, because he didn't want to say something sappy about how happy he was for all of them even though he knew that biology had never made any difference to the people who loved Jessica.

"They're thrilled. Jessie is so relieved, and Natalie is so happy for Jessie."

"Big of her to be happy for the sister whose fiance she stole."

"When we were sorting out the girls' DNA, we had a closer look taken at Liam and Ryder's as well. Liam is John's son just like her should have been and Ryder is Brody's son just like he should have been. This was very confusing for Brody in particular, and he and Natalie did have the good sense to call off the wedding. Tina, however, determined that a good wedding shouldn't go to waste and she and Cord were married the other day. Todd, I hope you won't be angry at Tina again because things haven't gone as smoothly as you would have liked for you and Blair."

Todd rolled his eyes at the irony. "That won't be a problem."

"Make sure that it isn't."

"Do you have more secrets to tell me or is it my turn?"

"There is something else we should discuss," said Viki imperiously. "But tell me what you need to tell me first."

"That sounds ominous," Todd complained. "I don't like ominous. Well, I do when I'm the one creating it, but-"

"The sun isn't even up yet. Can we save the rambling for another time?"

"The sun's up in Key West," said Todd petulantly. "Did you know that the first time Blair and I got married, it was in Key West?"

"Yes, I believe you told me that."

"Yesterday we did that again." He rushed over her expressions of congratulations and delight. "Blair didn't tell me that she was bringing the kids down here or why. If I had been the one who planned the wedding, I never would have had it without you. Besides the kids, you're the only one I'd care about having here."

"It sounds like the time and place was right, and I couldn't have come down there under the circumstances, as much as I would have wanted to. I'll just have to hug you when you get back to Llanview, now that you've decided you like hugs."

"Yeah," said Todd softly.

"About that night," Viki continued, and Todd knew that she was talking about the night Irene had confirmed that he, not Victor, was Todd Manning. "Irene's story was bizarre to say the least."

"People get long-lost twins they never knew about all the time. Just ask Natalie and Jessica."

"That was different. According to the information the police have managed to decode from that computer chip Starr brought in, that was very, very different."

Todd felt his knees go weak and was glad he was already sitting down. He fought to keep himself from curling into a ball right there on the beach in front of badly-dressed tourists out for a morning walk.

_"That computer chip Starr brought in."_

**_It._**

"What does it say?" he heard his own voice ask. His hand dug into the sand. He needed Blair. Anything could be happening to her and Starr and Jack and he couldn't quite remember where they were.

"That's not something I can tell you on the phone."

"Yes, you can!" Todd snapped. "I was tortured for eight years over that information. I have a right to know what it is _right now!_"

"I agree with you. I do, Todd, but this isn't public knowledge and this phone isn't secure. We may be in the publishing business but our family is about to become the story." She sighed heavily. "Again."

"So everyone there already knows?" He felt a rush of hatred for Bo Buchanan. "What about Kevin? Does _he_ know? Did you decide that _his_ phone was secure enough?"

"I've asked Kevin and Joey to come to Llanview to discuss this in person. CJ and Sarah as well," she added ingratiatingly. "You'll be happy to see them all grown up, won't you?"

"Don't change the subject."

"I'm not. Anyone with the dubious distinction of being a descendant of Victor Lord is going to be in the spotlight whether they want it or not. We need to discuss a united front and we need to give everyone a chance to start to digest this information before they start getting questions from the lower forms of the press, not to mention everyone they've ever met."

"So we're going to market ourselves like we're the damn Kennedys."

"If you have a better suggestion, I'm listening."

"My suggestion is that you just tell me what's going on now, and screw everyone else. I was the one who got tortured over that chip. I'm the one this is about."

"That suggestion does not work for me. Everyone has a right not to be blindsided." She sighed. "You're all going to be blindsided. But not in public."

"Really? You don't want to bring a film crew to this thing? We'll sell our own one-episode reality show. We'll put it behind a paywall on the _Banner_ and _Sun_ websites. We're media moguls, aren't we? I'm sure the old man would appreciate us making a buck off this if it has to happen anyway."

"That's not a terrible idea," said Viki thoughtfully. "We do need to use the _Banner_ and the _Sun_ to control the narrative. I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but we do have the ability to put the correct facts out there first, in our own words. We may have everyone in the family write a column. And I do think there should be a still photographer, at least. If we're getting the whole family together, we will at least get a complete family portrait out of it."

"Yay," said Todd flatly. "God, I hope the wine cellar at Llanfair is full."


	30. Chapter 30

Kevin didn't expect anyone to meet him at the airport in Philadelphia. He had been stuck in London thanks to a last minute business meeting and had sent Zane on ahead with Joey so Zane could get in some extra time with his grandparents. He would be the last to arrive in preparation for the perverse family reunion, and that was just as well. He never enjoyed it when his mother twisted his arm into attending something that revolved around Todd.

It was lucky, then, that Natalie's hair was such a shocking shade of red. Even without knowing that she would be waiting, Kevin saw her before she saw him and snuck up behind her to hug her hello.

"I didn't know you'd be here," he told her as they were leaving the airport arm-in-arm.

Natalie made a face that Kevin had long since learned meant that she felt guilty, but not guilty enough to stop whatever she was up to. "Officially, I'm not here," Natalie said, as if Kevin had needed confirmation. "Officially, I'm at work." She pulled at the credentials she wore on a chain around her neck.

"Someone got shot at the ticket counter?" Kevin looked at the chaos around him. He understood the temptation.

"Nope. Lunch break. We have to get back to the station."

Kevin didn't bother fighting through his jetlagged haze to discern exactly why Natalie thought he had to get to the station. He wasn't anxious to get to Llanfair, so any delay was welcome. If Todd was at the station, he was probably under arrest and Kevin usually enjoyed that.

Natalie marched Kevin straight into their Uncle Bo's office and shut the door. That gave Kevin pause. No one was really supposed to be alone in there without Bo's express invitation.

"Could you get fired for this?" Kevin asked.

Natalie shrugged. "If I do, you'll let me come back to B.E."

"You're always welcome," Kevin told her honestly. "You have a great head for it. You inherited a lot of Grandpa's gifts. But it was hard for you to be there after you lost Jared."

Natalie's eyes hardened at the mention of Jared's death. "Here's what happened," she began abruptly, and Kevin braced himself. "There is this... microchip that came into Todd's possession eight years ago. Starr just turned it over to the police last week. Neither one of them knew what it said or why Mitch Laurence and his people wanted it so badly. No one knew until a few days ago. When Uncle Bo found out what it said, he went to Mom and she decided that rest of us had to find out together."

"I know all of that."

"But I work in the police station and all that information was sitting right there." She pointed at an enormous stack of files. Apparently the LLanview PD had not yet caught the paperless bug.

"And you read it." Kevin drew the obvious conclusion.

"And now you need to."

"Aren't we all supposed to find out together? Isn't the whole point of this get together tonight?"

"I just wanted to check, all right?" Her voice took on a shrill, defensive edge. "I wanted to make sure there wasn't anything that would cause a problem. Jess- you know how fragile Jessica has been the past few years. This last time when her alters came out, it wasn't even a tragedy like when Nash died. Brody and I messed up big time, but no matter how many times you and Joey pass Kelly back and forth, it doesn't make either one of you lose your minds."

"Go easy on Kelly," Kevin said reflexively.

"She shouldn't have moved in on John like she did," said Natalie with a distinct lack of repentance. "John and I could have worked it out if she hadn't jumped in the way. Now John is trying to make up for lost time with Liam when he could have been involved all along if Kelly had left well enough alone. But that's not the point."

They both stared at the stack of papers and Natalie plucked an index from the top. She cradled it against her chest as if she wasn't quite certain that she wanted to give it to Kevin after all.

"This dinner tonight," Natalie said at last. "Mom loves all of us, but she has... she thinks some of us need more protection than others. Like when Jess locked me in a basement and tried to blow me up and Mom said to me 'Don't you feel bad for Jessie because she can't express her anger properly?' And yeah, I do feel bad for her. I love her. I know she loves me. Last week when Mitch had me, Jessica came running. She was mad at me and she still risked her life for me. So if the way Mom treats us is never going to be fair, I can deal. But the way she is with you and Todd, that's worse, because you don't love Todd and you shouldn't ever have to."

Even though Kevin thought the exact same thing every time Todd's name arose- which was all too often and had been from the first day Todd had darkened the KAD house door- he found himself defending his mother. "This really is about Todd, not about me, though."

"The way you snuck up behind me in the airport today? That reminded me of the first time I met you. Cristian was telling me that I should go up to you, but I was so scared. And then all of a sudden you were right there, hugging me and telling me I was beautiful and telling Cristian to take care of me like we'd known each other forever. You've always been good to me. You're a good brother and I love you and I wouldn't change anything about you."

"Now I'm scared," he told Natalie. The jetlag couldn't cancel out his nerves any longer. "No one's dying, right?"

"No," said Natalie firmly. "Keep that in mind."

"Stop beating around the bush."

Natalie pulled a flask out of her pocketbook and put it on the desk in front of them.

"You remember how Victor Lord came back from the dead and tried to cut out my heart?"

"No, Natalie, that slipped my mind," Kevin snapped. "Of course I remember that."

"He gave Todd a ring, and that ring had the computer chip in it."

Kevin gestured that Natalie should get to the part where she told him something he didn't know.

"He wasn't really Victor Lord. The real Victor Lord died in the 70s when Dorian or Mom or whoever killed him. This guy worked for Mitch Laurence. Mitch wanted- well, he wanted the Lord money, but more than that he wanted to punish and humiliate people he thought had punished and humiliated him."

"Vengeance is mine, sayeth Mitch."

"Exactly. Mitch had followers who did a lot of work on DNA manipulation. That's what about two-thirds of those papers are. Scientific research so a fake could pass a DNA test. He could get an actor who favored Victor Lord a little bit to pass himself off as the resurrection of our grandfather. I guess this guy had an attack of conscious when he was dying or something because he gave the information to Todd."

"And they knew Todd had the chip, so they kidnapped him to get it back?"

"They... accelerated their plan because they were afraid Todd had the chip. It was already in the works. They'd done it twice before they did it with Victor. The first person they 'replaced' with this thing they had going wasn't our grandfather. It was Mitch's brother, Walker." Natalie made a disgusted face. "The real Walker was ready to come into the fold and work with his brother, so Mitch used the opportunity to send an imposter out to run Walker's criminal empire. The real Walker was going to earn his brother's trust and get close to Mom."

"By posing as Todd," Kevin concluded uneasily.

"But they couldn't have Walker just come in and say he was Todd. They looked completely different. They had him come to Llanview under his own identity with a plan to have him exposed by someone who didn't even like Todd."

Kevin was starting to understand why Natalie had brought bourbon to this little discussion. "Me."

Natalie nodded. "They were already planning this before the did the heart of a Lord thing with the pretend Victor, so the chip had some of their plans on it. They have profiles on all of us, and most of it isn't very flattering. You know, Joey is dim, Jessica can't stand on her own two feet, I'm a vengeful bitch. But you were a lot more important to the plan than almost anyone else. They say a lot of things about you."

She walked back to the stack of papers and removed an enormous red binder, which she placed in front of Kevin. "All you," she told him. "How you hate and resent Todd and that could be used. How you're jealous of Todd. How you like to see yourself as a good man but can't admit that you aren't, so you'll bend over backwards to justify it- like stealing Cassie from a minister because you said you loved her so much, and then cheating on her, and then going after her cousin who was in love with your brother. How Kelly was cheating on you with that guy in Texas- and yes, they have the video, and no, I didn't watch it. Stuff on that private investigator Alyssa Collins, how to make sure you used her so she would lead you right to the records of 'Victor Todman' in the plastic surgery clinic and then expose Walker as Todd even though he wasn't. It's going to make you feel like a fool and I don't..."

Natalie unscrewed the flask, took a drink, and offered it to Kevin. He didn't refuse. The bourbon felt good going down; it had probably been Asa's, saved for a special occasion. Natalie had evidently decided that this was it.

"I didn't want you to find this out with Todd right there to start in on you and Mom letting him go," she said quietly. "I wanted to tell you that I love you so much and you're perfect to me and you shouldn't let this crazy shit make you feel like anything less than what you are."

Kevin closed his eyes and pushed all of that out of the way. He snapped himself into reporter mode and looked for the holes in his sister's story. "Three. You said there were three before Todd. Victor Lord, Walker Laurence. Who was the third?"

"Irene Manning. That person who was in charge of that facility where they were holding Todd wasn't his mother. She was another one of Mitch's disciples. She was pretending. She was doing a job. She wasn't even that high up in the organization. She answered to Allison Perkins- Jack Manning overheard them, but he doesn't understand yet what he overheard."

"Who was she really?"

"No one in particular. Just like the fake Victor was no one in particular. The only one whose real identity matters is Walker, who is not Todd, and who is not Todd's twin brother Victor, because Todd never had a twin brother. Walker is currently comatose so he can't tell us anything. We think he knew he was an imposter early on, but he spent so many years pretending to be Todd that he brainwashed himself into believing it. Benefit of the doubt."

Kevin reached for the flask and took another drink. Natalie nodded approvingly.

"How do we know any of us are who we say we are? How do I know you're Natalie if someone can just fake Natalie's DNA?"

"The technology isn't perfect. If we know what we're looking for, we can run a more sophisticated test. Uncle Bo did that with Walker. They also can't mimic appearance perfectly. Plastic surgery has its limits and it's traceable. That worked okay with Victor and Irene because no one had seen them for years, so people accepted that they would look different. It worked for Walker because he was so incredibly weird and didn't have anyone close to him. But when they wanted to switch out Todd, they couldn't make Walker look like him. They had to trick you into making the plastic surgery claim for them."

"Where did they get the money for all of this? If they were after the Lord money, it seems like they spent a lot more on DNA research and experimental prisons than they would have gotten from us."

"I think it just exploded out of proportion to what they intended to do. They were getting funding from all kinds of places, including some terrorist groups and some corrupt government agencies. I don't know if the customers were even aware of the connection to Mitch's church. It seems like all the crazy science and torture stuff ended up paying for itself, and then some."

Kevin opened the red binder with shaking hands. His own face stared back at him, followed by a list of "exploitable weaknesses."

Natalie pulled another binder from the stack and set it beside him. "Read this one when you're done. It's Starr's. The stuff about how it might have ruined their plan if she ended up in juvie before they could get her convinced that Walker was Todd is hilarious."

Kevin tried to smile, but he couldn't do anything but stare at the binder with his name on it.

The dinner party was going to be even worse than he'd expected.


	31. Chapter 31

When the limo pulled up to Llanfair, Blair put her hand on Jack's arm to keep him from following Sam out into the cool evening air. "I want to talk to Jack for a minute," she told Todd. "Take the other kids in."

Todd nodded and swung Hope onto his hip. He ushered Sam in the direction of the door while Starr walked gracefully at their side. It was so domestic that Blair was hit with a rush of dizziness, followed by a brief moment of nausea as she smelled the chicken and fish wafting out from the house. She had no idea what would happen at this dinner party, but experience had taught her that it was probably something that would blow their beautiful, almost functional, family to bits less than a week after they'd put it together.

She forced the thought out of her mind and returned her focus to Jack.

"This is going to be really bad," she told him bluntly.

Jack burst out laughing. "What was your first clue?"

"Probably the same as yours."

"Want to take the car and go somewhere fun instead?"

The suggestion was tempting, not least because a month before Jack would never have made it. "I want to, but you know we can't. We need to find out what was on that computer chip and what went on with your Dad and your Uncle Victor. You wouldn't really want to be left out of that, would you?"

Jack made a face. "So what are we waiting for?"

"I wanted to warn you about at least two things that are going to happen. Your Aunt Tina is going to take shots at me and your Dad is going to get into a fight with your cousin Kevin."

"No kidding. He's been preparing for that ever since he found out about this thing."

"Somewhere in there, someone is going to corner you and either pump you for information or attack you to see what happens. They might even bring up Gigi and Shane. Whatever else is going on, I want you to know that your Dad and I are looking out for you and we'll come rescue you if you need it."

Jack grunted discontentedly.

"Hey." Blair touched his chin so he looked her in the eye. "I would never tell you not to defend yourself. If you want to give as good as you get, you go for it. The only rule is that you do not throw me or your father or your sister under the bus."

"I guess they'll all be worshipping Starr, so you didn't have to talk to her about this."

"I don't know how Starr ended up being Viki for the next generation, either," Blair admitted. She had tried to put her finger on the moment in time and come up empty.

"But you love it."

"What I always wanted for you kids was a place where you belonged and the freedom to go anywhere you wanted. You have that. There are people in there who are fascinated by you and threatened by you, but there are people in there who _love_ you. And that includes your sister, who _is_ going to stick up for you if she has to."

"Whatever."

"We have a deal?"

Jack rolled his eyes and got out of the car.

"Jack!"

"We have a deal."

* * *

Viki opened the door herself before Todd was able to ring the bell.

"Don't you have people for that? Especially when you're throwing a party that is almost certainly going to result in bloodshed?"

Starr rolled her eyes and ran off to embrace a dark-haired young woman.

Viki ignored Todd completely. "We need Sam and Hope in the library. They're taking the pictures of the young children first."

Todd trailed after Viki, watching carefully to see if she showed any ill effects from the shooting. He thought that she looked a little too tired. One more reason this shindig was a bad idea.

In the library, Jessica and Natalie were cuddled together in an oversize chair and beaming at the photographer. They laughed; they made faces at Liam and Ryder, who sat in their laps; they stroked each other's hair. Todd could hardly tell where one ended and the other began.

"Weren't they _just_ threatening to strangle each other?" Todd asked Viki. "Like, last week?"

"You missed a great deal during those eight years," said Viki quietly. "They became very close."

"Jessica said that, too. I assumed she was lying."

"No." Viki signaled the photographer that Sam and Hope had arrived. "They grew into each other beautifully."

"Don't expect to see me cuddling with my long lost twin like that if he ever comes out of his coma." The thought made Todd's skin crawl. He felt no sense of kinship for the man, not that he felt anything for the majority of his blood relatives. Viki was the exception that proved the rule.

Viki's jaw tightened, and Todd wondered if she was angry with him for not embracing Victor. That would be a bizarre turn of events; she had always tolerated his loathing for Kevin, and Kevin was her son. She hadn't expected Jessica to care for Natalie when Natalie first materialized; she hadn't even much liked Natalie herself.

The photographer was busy arranging Bree, Sam, and another little boy on the chair the twins had vacated. "Who's the other boy?"

"_That_ is my grandson Zane. Kevin's son," said Viki with pride. Todd made a face at the idea of Kevin reproducing, and left his face that way when he saw Tina approaching.

"You asked me to tell you when Dan Wolek and his wife got here," Tina told Viki importantly.

"Yes, of course. Thank you, Tina." She hastened from the room with a pat on Todd's shoulder and a whispered "behave yourself."

Tina waltzed around Todd with a triumphant smile on her face. "Why did Viki have to tell you to behave yourself? Are you feeling nasty because Blair's not here?" She flashed her wedding ring in Todd's face. "Only blood Lords and their legally wed spouses allowed. And since Cord and I are married now..." she trailed off with an even wider grin. "But Blair-"

_"Did I hear my name?"_

Todd and Tina both whipped around to see Blair approaching in mile-high heels and a sleeveless red dress. Todd had watched her get ready and he was still stunned by her appearance. His babe knew how to make an entrance. She always had.

It quickly became clear that Blair had heard a lot more than her name, because she pressed her body into Todd's and wrapped her bare arm around him to put the wedding band on her left hand at Tina's eye level.

"Wow," said Tina disdainfully. "Hope this works out for the two of you this time. What is it, the eighth, ninth time that's supposed to be a charm?"

"Fourth," Blair corrected. "But it's nice of you to pay such close attention to your brother's life."

"Fourth?" Tina suddenly looked uncomfortable.

"What?" asked Blair, but instead Tina locked eyes with Todd. "You didn't get married on Halloween, did you?"

"Yes, but don't feel obligated to send us an anniversary card," Todd confirmed.

"Married for the fourth time on Halloween." Tina looked more disturbed than ever. "The same as Cord and me."

Even though agreeing with Tina had never worked out well for Todd in the past, he decided that he had to risk it one more time. "Let's never talk about this again."

"Good idea."

"Where are CJ and Sarah?"

"Oh, of course you want to see them..."

Whatever Todd's problems with Tina, he had always liked her children. Sarah, he realized belatedly, he had already seen catching up with Starr. The two of them were still babbling happily about careers in the music industry.

CJ was standing ramrod straight in a Navy uniform and looking exactly like the kind of law-and-order man Todd had no interest in knowing. But as soon as CJ smiled, Todd knew that the great kid had grown into a great man- although it was a bit much when CJ confided that when he was in a difficult situation, he often thought of the day Todd had pulled him out of Marty's mangled car and carried him up the embankment on his back.

For the next hour, they were shuffled in and out of pictures. Todd reluctantly took part in the family portrait and even more reluctantly posed with Tina, and then with Viki and Tina, and then with Viki and Tina and Cord and Blair. The only pictures he ever expected to look at again were the ones he posed for with Blair, Starr, Jack, Sam, and Hope. Maybe he'd have a new family portrait made for the entryway to La Boulaie just to annoy Dorian.

That was a nice thought. Dorian still considered herself to be Victor Lord's widow and would be stewing in her own juices when she realized that she had not been invited to make the most unpleasant soiree ever even more unpleasant.

When the portraits were finally completed, they were ushered into the formal dining room. Fifteen places had been set at a long table with Viki at the head. Tina made a dash to sit at Viki's right hand, so Todd made a point of sitting at her left, barely taking the time to pull out the chair beside him for Blair. To his disgust, Kevin was on Blair's other side with the red-haired interloper Natalie on his left. Jessica and Joey were across from their siblings, and the only people Todd really wanted to see- Starr and Jack and CJ and Sarah- were almost at the far end of the table. Dan Wolek and his wife had carefully placed themselves at the very end, which Todd figured was the wisest thing they could have done if they hadn't been wise enough to refuse to come in the first place.

Apparently only Danielle had put her foot down and refused to come at had to give her credit for that.

In the corner of the room, a small table with a surface like an iPad glowed with what appeared to be a Disney cartoon of some sort. Sam, Zane, Hope, and Bree were all equipped with noise-cancelling headphones and were staring intently at the table- occasionally slapping at a button that arose- while eating cheeseburgers and slurping milkshakes. Lois, the head of Viki's staff, was watching them carefully.

It was clever, Todd supposed; the younger children weren't going to hear a word of the announcement but they were still in the room and got to feel included. Or perhaps Viki had placed them there as hostages; the kids wouldn't pick up on the details of _The Victor Lord Story: Part Shut Up Already,_ but they would notice if their parents started punching each other.

But that seemed too nefarious for Viki. Besides, Todd was more than willing to punch Kevin in front of Sam and Hope if Kevin gave him a reason.

Food was served. Wine was poured.

Viki started talking.

* * *

By the time Viki had finished explaining how Walker Laurence had managed to impersonate first Todd and then Todd's non-existent twin, Blair was staring hard at her wine glass to keep from making eye contact with any of the people around her. On her right, she could feel Todd's rage building; Mitch Laurence had created imposters of Todd's parents and then Todd himself. On her left, Kevin, who had been one of the instruments used to place Walker in Todd's place, didn't seem to be in a much better state.

Thankfully, Natalie and Jessica appeared to be making an effort to defuse the situation; they were whistling _Mrs. Robinson_ under their breath and nudging Joey. Joey, always good-natured, was letting himself be the the butt of the joke. But Blair didn't dare look up and see if Kevin was starting to laugh.

She was too afraid that Kevin was looking at her.

Further down the table, Starr was still listening raptly to Sarah's nonstop stream of chatter about booking talent and what Starr needed to do if she was interested in getting steady gigs at clubs. CJ and Jack were talking about soccer; Jack had kept his word and had not made one comment about how Starr had been tricked into accepting Walker as their father.

And in the corner, the movie on the children's table had been replaced with a game of virtual air hockey. Bree and Hope were playing against Sam and Zane, and every so often one of them would shriek with victory or laughter.

Blair wished that one of them would throw a tantrum. It would be a ready excuse to leave. She contemplated grabbing Sam and accusing him of something that he hadn't done but that was grounds for leaving _right away_, and then rewarding him for his cooperation by buying him his own Smart Table the next day.

Then Joey prodded Kevin by calling him "Grandpa." Todd's head snapped up.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

Joey cringed and mouthed an apology across the table at Kevin.

Dead silence fell suddenly on their half of the table, followed by gradual quiet down at Starr and Jack's end.

"Well?" asked Todd. "Grandpa?"

The whole room waited for someone to answer.

"Zane is Kevin's son," Jessica said at last. "But biologically, he's Duke's son. Duke died before Zane was born."

Todd looked confusedly at Blair. "But I thought Kelly was his mother."

"She is," Blair admitted. At any other time she would have been amused to watch the disgust overwhelm Todd's face as that sunk in.

"So when Starr used to come back from Texas saying 'Kelly took Duke and me out to catch scorpions' that was actually, what, foreplay?"

"Dad," said Starr from her end of the table.

"But that's _disgusting_. She helped raise him!" Todd continued. "She's carrying on Victor Lord's legacy better than anyone here."

"Shut up, Todd," Kevin growled. Blair could feel Kevin clenching his fists beside her.

"Guess you had other priorities," Todd said with mock-understanding. "Like being used as Mitch Laurence's tool."

Suddenly Kevin's body relaxed. "That wasn't so bad," he said. "I did get to sleep with Blair."


	32. Chapter 32

When Todd stood up, Kevin stood up too. Blair backed out of their way and scrambled to extract Sam and Hope from the situation. If she was also using them as a shield, she didn't admit that to herself.

"Time to go," she told them to a chorus of complaints.

"Your mother said it's time to go. It's time to go." Todd was at her shoulder, moving to pick up Sam as she picked up Hope.

She risked a glance behind her. Kevin was still on his feet, and Joey looked ready to intervene, but Todd showed no sign of approaching either of them. Most of the chaos in the room came from Bree's piercing whine- a sound thankfully unique to seven-year-old girls- that she wanted Sam and Hope to sleep over.

Quick negotiations ensued, and it was determined that if Sam and Hope were still behaving themselves when Starr and Jack were ready to leave, they could stay the night.

Todd, though, could not be convinced that he and Blair should stay a minute longer. It wasn't until their coats were on and they were halfway out the door that he stormed back into the dining room and punched Kevin squarely in the jaw. Kevin lunged back, but Todd was prepared to duck and retreat.

"That's not for sleeping with her," Todd thundered as he departed. "That's for bringing it up at your mother's dinner party. A gentleman never tells, Buchanan."

* * *

The silence in the limo was disorienting after the cacophony of Llanfair's dining room. It hurt Blair's ears and distracted her while she waited for Todd's explosion.

_How could you think he was me? How could you let our daughter get pregnant and our son kill someone? How could you leave me to rot for eight years? How could you have sex with Kevin Buchanan? I blame you, Blair. I. Blame. You._

"Get on with it already!" Blair snapped after a few moments of quiet.

"With what?" asked Todd in an emotionless voice.

So that was what she was going to get. The post-Ireland treatment, shut down and shut out.

"Shouting, throwing things, threatening to kill people, threatening to take my kids away."

Todd had his eyes plastered to his phone, to which he had downloaded all of the information on Viki's computer. "Busy now. Maybe later." He lowered the window that separated them from the driver. "Take us to the _Sun_."

"Yes, Sir."

The window slammed shut again.

"Why are we going to the _Sun_?" Blair asked.

"Because we have a deal with the _Banner_ to release everything the day after tomorrow. I have a story to write. So do you. So do Starr and Jack. They better not expect to sleep all day if they stay up talking to their cousins all night."

Blair pulled up the documents on her own phone and went straight to the section on her. There was very little that she didn't expect. Her history with Asa was detailed. _Gold-digger._ Cord, Patrick, Max, and Sam Rappaport were all accounted for. _Promiscuous. Slut. _She'd tried to ruin Dorian's life; she'd withheld Asa's medication; she'd shot Max. _Vengeful. Dangerous. Bitch. _Particular care was taken to describe her first marriage to Todd. _Liar. Manipulator._ Suicide attempt._ Rash. Insecure._ Desperate for love. Desperate enough to believe the unbelievable.

She flashed the light of her phone in Todd's face. "I'm rash and vengeful," she told him when he squinted at her and pushed the phone away.

"You needed Mitch Laurence to tell you that?"

"It's why I had sex with Kevin. I was mad at you and Walker and Kelly. It was one time and it was awful and I regretted it and I told him that."

"You told him that?"

"Yeah."

"You didn't tell _me_ that. You didn't tell me Viki got shot. Is this a pattern, Blair?"

"You barely knew your own name when we were in Key West!" Blair retorted sharply. "I couldn't tell you about Viki when I found out, and there was so much going on-"

"You decided I was competent to marry you, but by then you forgot my sister was shot."

"Yes, I did!" Blair crossed her arms defensively over her abdomen. "I forgot to tell you about Viki, and I forgot to warn you about Kevin. I was so busy telling Jack what to expect that I didn't think about what was going to happen when you saw Kevin. I'm sorry, okay?"

She slammed her phone down on the seat between them.

Todd reached across Blair to tuck her phone into her handbag. Her body jerked as his arm brushed her legs. She was waiting for something, but she didn't know what.

Todd slid closer to her and kissed her cheek. "Thank you for everything you did in Key West. You did good. And I defended your honor in there."

Blair leaned contentedly against Todd. Now that she knew he wasn't really angry, she could retroactively enjoy the way he'd slugged Kevin. It felt like forever since someone had stood up for her. "He was being a jerk," she said.

"He's always been a jerk," Todd corrected as they reached the Manning Building.

* * *

Todd started writing the overview of Mitch's plan first. He knew that he needed to write an editorial covering his personal experience, too, but every time he thought about it his chest tightened up and he worried that Blair, parked on the couch with a laptop, would hear him gasping for air.

He wasn't bothered by Mitch's overview of his history. He knew that he was gang rapist. He had no inclination to forget, which was just as well since his scar jumped out at him every time he caught a glimpse of his reflection.

But he couldn't stop himself from reading the conclusion of the report over and over again.

_Once the imposter is accepted as Manning, there is nothing he can do to blow his cover. Manning will exploit anyone's vulnerabilities. His sister's mental illness as a result of childhood sexual abuse was an excuse to get out of prison for a crime he had committed; his daughter's childish insecurity was encouraged to punish her mother. Once a man's family has forgiven him for giving away his own child and claiming the child was dead, can they truly expect him to place any limits on his future behavior?_

He'd spent eight years hiding in his memories, and now he couldn't pull himself out of memories that weren't his.

Marty, injured and completely reliant on him, falling in love with him without having a clue who he was.

Starr, pregnant and unconscious at the bottom of the staircase he had knocked her down.

Jack, learning that a father's love was completely conditional.

Blair, convinced that their romance was a one-sided attachment she had made up.

"Todd?"

Blair's voice broke into his thoughts, but only just. She glanced at his computer screen, saved and closed the document, and sent his computer into sleep mode.

He couldn't catch his breath to protest.

He couldn't take a deep breath at all until she kissed him. Then he held on to her as hard as he could.

"We should have known," she murmured in his ear. "We should have known. I'm sorry."

He could barely understand what the words meant through the haze in his brain.

_Marty the Party Girl._

Marty the Martyr.

Are you kidding? You know me. You know me. He sets up a love shack with Marty Saybrooke, that should be your first clue...that this guy is a complete fraud.

Get rid of it.

He's dead, the baby died inside of you.

Your mother doesn't want you, Starr. She chose the baby and Max over you.

Mommy's in jail because you won't forgive her. I do bad stuff all the time. Maybe you won't forgive me.

I blame you. I would never have stopped looking for you. You should never have stopped looking for me.

You should have known. 

"You should have known," he whispered back, but this time he was trying to convince himself instead of her.

"I should have."

"Maybe not," he admitted, and it was easier now that he'd said it out loud.

"Maybe yes."

Blair kissed him again, and Todd's whole body dissolved into the kiss. When he'd been in captivity, he had come out of his memories to wish for this. Now it was real. Now Blair was calming the noise in his head like she always had.

He pressed his body against hers, chest to chest and hip to hip, and lowered her to the couch. He couldn't tell her again that he was mad at her but he forgave her and that he was sorry and that he adored her.

But he could show her.

"Always loved you in red," he said as he divested her of the dress.

* * *

When Blair had managed to get her tight dress back over her damp body, she requested that Todd take her home. They could finish their writing tomorrow.

Todd, having been made more relaxed and agreeable by their lovemaking, agreed. The trip home was quick and pleasant and spent basking in the afterglow.

Movement on the stairs caught Blair's eye as soon as they entered La Boulaie. Perhaps the kids had come home early after all. "Starr?" she called. "Jack?"

"Even better." David Vickers sauntered forward to meet them.

Todd and Blair exchanged a disgusted look.

"What are you doing here, David?" Blair demanded. "Dorian is in Washington."

"Dorian sent me here. She wanted me to make sure you voted."

Blair rolled her eyes. "Yes."

"For _her_?"

"Yes!"

"It was a harder decision for me," said Todd conversationally. "On the one hand, I'd like Dorian to be somewhere that isn't here. On the other hand," he shuddered, "Senator Dorian Cramer?"

"That's Senator Dorian Cramer Lord Vickers Buchanan," David corrected idly. "Blair, do you want me to get rid of this guy?"

Blair draped herself over Todd and showed David her ring, as she had shown Tina earlier that night. "This guy is my husband, so that would be no."

David paled visibly. "You're kidding, right? I know you didn't dump Tomas, remarry Todd, and not tell Dorian." He looked Blair up and down and sniffed distastefully. "You had some sort of mental break and you've been wandering the streets without changing your clothes for weeks, right? You don't know what you're saying. That's the only explanation for this."

Blair exchanged a look with Todd and confirmed that neither one of them felt like playing games with David right now.

She took Todd's hand and led him to the stairs. "Good night, David," she called over her shoulder. "Have a nice trip back to Washington."

When they'd vanished, David sat down heavily and stared at Dorian's picture on his phone. Dorian had sent him to Llanview to make sure that Blair wasn't falling for Todd again and was expecting an update. With Dorian's habit of shooting the messenger, he'd be lucky if she let him back inside the Beltway, not to mention inside that other belt that interested him more. But it would be worse still if he waited for someone else to tell her the news.

"Dorian," he began. "Yeah, I'm here. You won't like this..."

**The End**

_**Note/Disclaimer**__: Thank you for sticking with me as I plowed through my first OLTL fic! This actually turned out to be the first part of a trilogy. The second part is called Diamond in the Sky and the third is called The Green Goblin. Both should be available though my author page at FF.N within a few days of this posting. _

_Obviously, all things OLTL are the property of ABC and Prospect Park. Not mine!_


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